by Matthew Russell Lee, Patreon Book Substack
SDNY COURTHOUSE, Jun 13 - For the UN's role in Hamas' October 7 attacks, non-US citizen plaintiffs and estates on June 24 filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York against UNRWA, Philippe Lazzarini, Pierre Krahenbuhl, Filippo Grandi, Leni Stenseth, Sandra Mitchel, Margot Ellis and Greta Gunnarsdottir.
The individual plaintiffs are sued for, inter alia, their "constant travel to New York" to raise and get money and "their material support of Hamas' terror infrastructure." Also cited, for jurisdiction and venue, is "over one billion dollars from UNRWA's New York bank account in Manhattan that Defendants then caused to be delivered to Gaza in cash U.S. dollars to benefit Hamas."
Inner City Press, which daily cover the SDNY court in-person and the UN from outside the gate, banned from entry by SG Antonio Guterres, asked Guterres' spokespeople Stephane Dujarric and Melissa Fleming about the lawsuit, without any response per usual.
Nor have they responded to Inner City Press' June 19 application to enter the UN to ask these questions.
On February 18, the (new) SDNY wrote in, "The Government is currently reviewing the views." Letter on Inner City Press' DocumentCloud here
On April 17 DOJ wrote in asking for one more week to finalize. Inner City Press, still banned from the UN by Antonio Guterres, tweeted it.
On April 24 the Administration wrote in that it "has since reevaluated that position, and now concludes UNRWA is not immune from this litigation. Nor are the bulk of other defendants" - 10 page filing on DocumentCloud here.
On May 1 the UN's law firm wrote in to "to request leave to respond to the U.S. Government’s letter dated April 24, 2025."
On May 2 the UN was given until May 22 to reply.
Late on May 22 the UN's publicly-funded law firm argued that the UN Administration's position is "not entitled to any deference" and should be disregarded.
When the plaintiff's asked for permission to respond, the UN's law firm - no answer from the UN on how they were chosen or how much in taxpayers' fund they are being paid - said they weren't asked and if granted, give them a surreply.
On June 13 the plaintiffs argued that There is no basis for the argument that absolutely any entity the GA creates is entitled to absolute immunity, and Lazzarini and Grandi are not immune. And Guterres?
The UNRWA case is ESTATE OF TAMAR KEDEM SIMAN TOV, BY HEIR-AT-LAW GAD KEDEM v. UNITED NATIONS RELIEF AND WORKS AGENCY (UNRWA) et al., 24-cv-04765 (Torres)
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