The US Supreme Court has agreed to decide the legality of a 2019 federal statute meant to facilitate lawsuits against Palestinian authorities by Americans killed or injured in attacks in Israel and elsewhere, Reuters reports.
The justices took up appeals by President Joe Biden’s administration and a group of American victims and their families of a lower court’s ruling that this law violated the rights of the Palestinian Authority and Palestine Liberation Organisation to due process under the US Constitution.
The law is called the Promoting Security and Justice for Victims of Terrorism Act.
The Supreme Court is expected to hold arguments in the case and rule by the end of June. Its decision to hear the case comes during the Gaza conflict in which Israel launched an air and ground assault on the enclave after Palestinian fighters stormed Israeli border communities in October 2023.
US courts for years have grappled over whether they have jurisdiction in cases involving the Palestinian Authority and PLO for actions taken abroad. The plaintiffs in the litigation before the Supreme Court include families who in 2015 won a $655 million judgment in a civil case alleging that the Palestinian organisations were responsible for a series of shootings and bombings around Jerusalem from 2002 to 2004.
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