Each victim’s estate should receive NIS 400,000 plus lawyers’ fees for the decades-long legal fight, the court said.
Channel 12 first reported the decision, and The Jerusalem Post independently obtained a copy of the ruling.
Four Palestinian terrorists hijacked the Italian ship Achille Lauro in October 1985 as it was en route to Alexandria and demanded the release of Palestinian prisoners from Israeli prisons.
The terrorists shot Leon Klinghoffer, a disabled Jew who was strapped to his wheelchair, and threw him overboard.
They also hurt other passengers, including Sofi Chiser and Anna Shneider. Their families, represented by Shurat HaDin (Israel Law Center), initiated legal proceedings against the PLO to obtain damages 21 years ago.
Hopefully, “this historic judgment... will deliver a measure of justice to these Jewish-American families,” Shurat HaDin founder Nitsana Darshan-Leitner said in a statement. “While everyone knows the infamous story of the murder of elderly New Yorker Leon Klinghoffer, who was killed by the PLO in cold blood, few people remember that there were other victims held hostage on the ship who were threatened with being shot merely because they were also Jews.”
“The defendants tried to argue that the PLO didn’t carry out the attack, only the PFLP,” she said. “But we were able to establish once and for all that the PFLP under Mohammad Abbas’s command perpetrated this heinous hijacking as a full terrorist operation coordinated with Arafat’s main PLO factions.”
“We are very proud of our legal effort and the message it sends – that we will never stop pursuing those who target Jews or perpetrate violence against our communities,” Darshan-Leitner said. “Never again means pursuing the terrorist organizations forever.”
This is not the first time that Israeli courts have issued such rulings.
In November 2018, the Supreme Court issued a ruling endorsing two judgments totaling close to NIS 14m. against the Palestinian Authority for falsely jailing 51 Palestinians.
In April 2020, the Jerusalem District Court issued an award for NIS 500m. against the PA for terrorist acts committed mostly during the Second Intifada. Shurat HaDin also served as the legal team in this case.
The ruling on Sunday was significant since it brought to a close an infamous hijacking and held the PLO responsible for the actions of a splinter terrorist group and did not allow it to claim it had not directed that group’s actions. The PLO was the puppet master of various splinter groups and should be held liable, the court said.
It is unclear how the Israeli government will handle trying to collect the damages from the PLO. In the past, the issue has been a source of diplomatic controversy.
The Achille Lauro was also a turning point for the Israeli Navy and counterterrorism officials.
Yedidya Yaari, who later led the 2002 operation to capture the PA’s Karine A terrorist weapons ship, was the commander of Shayetet 13, the navy commandos, during the hijacking of the Achille Lauro, and it was a wakeup moment conceptually for both the Israeli and US navies.
It became clear, as with the hijacking of airplanes, that terrorists could hijack an Israeli ship (or a ship of a Western country), and the State of Israel did not have the ability to confront them.
Developing operational capability for navy commandos to covertly recapture a hijacked ship while it was in motion and sailing became a top priority. The Israeli and US navies started to develop tactics and strategies for clandestinely pulling up next to and boarding a ship.