U.S. Court Awards $70M From Iran To Victims of American Jerusalem Terror Attack
A San Diego federal court awarded $70 million in compensation from Iran to five U.S. citizens injured in a 1997 terror attack in Jerusalem.
Culminating a 10-year legal battle, Judge Barry Moskowitz ruled on Tuesday that Cubic Defense Systems transfer the money to the plaintiffs.
A U.S. district court in Washington, D.C., had awarded the plaintiffs $70 million in 2003, but Iran would not agree to pay, spurring the plaintiffs to place a lien on funds held by Cubic. Based on a U.S.-Iran treaty signed after Iran’s revolution in 1979, Iran claimed the money held by Cubic as its own; the company had done business with Iran before the revolution. To receive the compensation, the plaintiffs adopted Iran’s claim.
The victims were injured in a double suicide bombing in central Jerusalem carried out by the Palestinian terrorist organization Hamas. In 2001, the victims sued Iran in U.S. court, alleging that Iran provided material support for the bombing.
David Strachman and Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, the founder of Shurat HaDin-Israel Law Center, which aims to bankrupt terror organizations through legal means, represented the victims.
“We still remember the heinous murders carried out by the Iranian proxy, Hamas, in 1997,” Darshan-Leitner said in a statement. “We are still fighting every single day for a measure of justice and compensation from the outlaw regimes that supported the terror organizations.”
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a gift today!
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Most Popular
- 1
Fast Forward Ye debuts ‘Heil Hitler’ music video that includes a sample of a Hitler speech
- 2
Opinion It looks like Israel totally underestimated Trump
- 3
Culture Is Pope Leo Jewish? Ask his distant cousins — like me
- 4
Fast Forward Student suspended for ‘F— the Jews’ video defends himself on antisemitic podcast
In Case You Missed It
-
Fast Forward For the first time since Henry VIII created the role, a Jew will helm Hebrew studies at Cambridge
-
Fast Forward Argentine Supreme Court discovers over 80 boxes of forgotten Nazi documents
-
News In Edan Alexander’s hometown in New Jersey, months of fear and anguish give way to joy and relief
-
Fast Forward What’s next for suspended student who posted ‘F— the Jews’ video? An alt-right media tour
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.