Shurat HaDin: Battling Israel's foes through legal warfare

Like everyone in Israel, the lawyers of the Tel Aviv-based Shurat HaDin Law Center woke up on the morning of Oct. 7 to a new and terrifying reality. As the shocking magnitude of the atrocities perpetrated by Hamas became clear, the legal team was asked to meet with various government branches, security services, and the IDF, all scrambling to respond forcefully to the unfolding tragedy. 

Almost overnight, Shurat HaDin was called into service and, since then, has pushed aside its other activities to focus full time on the war effort. Operation Swords of Iron is a multi-front war, being fought on land, air, and sea. However, some of the most critical attacks against the terrorists and their allies are not taking place on the battlefields of the Middle East but in courtrooms around the world.

Shurat HaDin is a human rights organization that specializes in the legal and economic struggle against terrorist organizations. Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, president the organization, recently spoke to the Magazine, summarizing Shurat HaDin’s activities since the outbreak of war.

She explained that over the past 11 months, Shurat HaDin has used its legal resources and courtroom expertise to actively combat Hamas, fight antisemitism, and counter the international movement to delegitimize the Jewish state.

“Hamas couldn’t have done what it did on Oct. 7 without a tremendous amount of financial resources,” she explained. “The construction of the tunnels, the weapons, the missiles – all cost billions of dollars. The widespread belief that the Gaza terror group was impoverished was a dangerous miscalculation that now needs to be corrected.  At the government’s request, and with its cooperation, we are trying to shut down the financial pipeline that is bringing money into the [Gaza] Strip for Hamas.”

To that end, Shurat HaDin issued a claim in the Jerusalem District Court against the Palestinian Authority (PA), which transfers $1 billion to Hamas every year for the support of the Gazan infrastructure, including water, fuel, and electricity, as well as its health system. 

“Hamas has been the governing body in Gaza and collects taxes from its citizens,” Darshan-Leitner said. “They are the ones who should be paying for all their infrastructure and the population’s upkeep and support. However, they convinced another entity to pay for it, and they were able to pocket an extra $1 billion annually, which was diverted to [Hamas’s] terror tunnels and military campaign.” 

The complaint was brought on behalf of 500 Israeli victims of the Oct. 7 massacre. Shurat HaDin brought a second suit in the Jerusalem District Court against the Qatar Foundation, a Gazan charitable organization that the government of Qatar has been supporting.

“This group is supposedly doing humanitarian work in Gaza in clinics and schools,” Darshan-Leitner noted.However, she explained that Hamas is actually appropriating the funds donated to this charity because there is no difference between the terror group’s so-called “benevolent” section and its military wing. She added that employees of this organization are engaged in charity during the day and involved in terror attacks against Israelis at night.

Darshan-Leitner said that Hamas has utilized the services of cryptocurrency exchanges such as Binance to clandestinely raise money from its supporters around the world. When Hamas solicits money on social media, it requests that donations be made through these decentralized platforms. Her organization is now suing Binance at the New York Federal Court for aiding and abetting terrorism.

CHANGING TACK on the legal battles being fought in the war, Shurat HaDin has also filed a suit in the Jerusalem District Court against the International Red Cross for not providing support to the captives in Gaza and failing to deliver the medicines they needed.

“The Red Cross is the only organization authorized to work in war zones and provide assistance to captives on both sides,” Darshan-Leitner clarified. “They have a special status under international law and a special obligation to visit and assist captives in a nonpartisan manner. 

“Yet, the Red Cross has disgracefully refused to assist the Israeli hostages, pleading a long list of fake justifications. They simply refused to lift a finger to help these Jews being held by the terrorists under such deathly conditions. They never brought them their medicines or made any real effort to ensure their health or survival. The Red Cross completely abandoned them.” 

She noted that the organization also had never visited Gilad Schalit, the Israeli soldier held captive by Hamas for five years – finally released in 2011 in exchange for 1,000 Palestinian security prisoners, including Yahya Sinwar. Outrageously, the Red Cross has nevertheless been insisting on its right to visit the captured Hamas terrorists held in Israel.

“During World War II,  the Red Cross didn’t visit the concentration camps where the Jews were being killed or try to sound an alarm or rescue them. They refused and shockingly said that it was an internal German matter and not their obligation,” Darshan-Leitner said.

“The Red Cross website today contains an apology for not rescuing the Jews in the death camps. I don’t want to visit their website in a few years and read a similar feigned apology for not assisting the Israeli captives in Gaza.”

BEYOND HAMAS, Shurat HaDin has gone on the legal attack against UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East), which was established by the UN to provide assistance and protection to Palestine refugees in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, east Jerusalem, and Gaza.

Ten percent of the organization’s staff participated in the slaughter on Oct. 7, Darshan-Leitner said, and half of its workers identify with Hamas. Moreover, UNRWA has assisted Hamas throughout the war. “All of the UNRWA installations have rockets and launchers, and there are tunnels underneath. Hamas’s network servers were installed under the UNRWA main offices, and terrorists work from their facilities,” she stated.

Shurat HaDin has filed suit against the US State Department for its support of UNRWA. Darshan-Leitner explained that “American law prohibits providing aid to someone who uses those funds for terror.”  In addition, Shurat HaDin is bringing a claim against UNRWA on behalf of the Samerano family, whose son Jonathan was killed at the Supernova music festival. An UNRWA employee then seized his body and took it to Gaza. 

“They claim immunity because they are a UN organization, and Israeli law is supposed to provide an exemption for UN entities,” Darshan-Leitner said, “but we will claim that UNRWA equals Hamas, and a terror organization cannot claim immunity.”

TURNING ITS attention to antisemitism on campus in the US, Shurat HaDin has filed a suit against Harvard University on behalf of 10 of the school’s graduates, stating that the institution not only ignores antisemitic attacks but actually enables them.

Darshan-Leitner explained that due to the mass anti-Israel demonstrations held on the Harvard campus, major law firms and prestigious hedge fund companies have sent out letters stating they would not hire Harvard graduates. The parties in the suit are claiming that Harvard’s inaction against the runaway antisemitism has lessened the value of their degrees, harmed the school’s reputation, and prevented them from finding work.

As part of its legal war on antisemitism, Shurat HaDin has also filed suit against Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), which is, in Darshan-Leitner’s words, the “student arm of Hamas in the US.” “They spread propaganda and use tactics of intimidation against students on campus. We have proven that it is an organization that is the alter ego of Hamas.” Shurat HaDin filed its suit against SJP in the Federal Court in Tampa, Florida, where a large branch of the student group is located.

Rounding out Shurat HaDin’s legal activities this year have been the legal proceedings it has initiated in the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague against Hamas. Darshan-Leitner said that Shurat HaDin will be bringing charges for the rapes of Israeli women committed by Hamas. 

Commenting on the severity of Hamas’s actions, she said that Shurat HaDin brought a group of women from Kosovo who had been sexually assaulted during the war between Kosovo and Serbia to visit the southern kibbutzim and the site of the Supernova festival. 

“The women from Kosovo said what Hamas did was unprecedented,” Darshan-Leitner reported. “The cruelty and brutality and the burning of bodies was unimaginable. No sexual violence had ever been perpetrated like this in any other previous conflict. Nevertheless, the world was silent, and the women’s organizations in the UN were silent.”

BEYOND ITS legal activities designed to cut off the supply of funds to Hamas and change the narrative around antisemitism, Shurat HaDin has been active in other areas. On September 26, the organization held a hackathon in Tel Aviv that brought together AI experts and pro-Israel activists to assist in developing tech tools to assist Israel in enhancing its media and public relations efforts. 

“We are vastly outnumbered by our enemies on social media,” Darshan-Leitner explained. “For every influencer we have, they have another 200. We must figure out more effective ways to reach the masses of people and use AI to greatly improve the message we send – and level the playing field. Hi-tech is where we excel, and we need to activate our Start-Up Nation’s culture and innovations to ensure that Israel and the IDF’s narrative dominate the space.”

In addition, her organization will be holding a conference at the Yale Club in New York on October 31 as part of an effort to better unify the work of all the pro-Israel organizations in the US. Tools created at the hackathon will be presented, and the conference will attempt to bolster cooperation and unite the organizations to work more efficiently on behalf of Israel.

“People are very frustrated,” she concluded. “We are in an existential war, and Jews worldwide are concerned about the continued existence of the State of Israel. Many are also greatly terrified about the rise in antisemitism and the threatening online incitement. 

“The solution is to join us in this war against antisemitism and against terror. This is not the time to sit by passively and mourn.  “Not everyone can hold a gun or pilot a plane, but everyone can help the citizens’ front against the enemies of Israel. The private sector needs to step up its game and get involved,” she asserted.

This article was written in cooperation with Shurat HaDin.