The US Supreme Court examined on Tuesday the legality of a 2019 statute passed by Congress to facilitate lawsuits against Palestinian authorities by Americans killed or injured in terrorist attacks abroad as plaintiffs pursue monetary damages for violence years ago in Israel and the West Bank.

The nine justices heard arguments in appeals by the US government and a group of American victims and their families of a lower court’s ruling that the law at issue violated the rights of the Palestinian Authority and Palestine Liberation Organization to due process under the US Constitution.

The ongoing violence involving Israel and the Palestinians served as a backdrop to the arguments.

Many of the questions posed by the justices seemed to suggest they would rule in favor of the plaintiffs. Some of the questions explored the authority of Congress and the president to empower US federal courts to hear civil suits over allegedly wrongful conduct experienced by Americans overseas, and what type of connection defendants must have to the United States before they must face such legal proceedings.

US courts for years have grappled over whether they have jurisdiction in cases involving the Palestinian Authority and PLO for actions taken abroad.

Under the language at issue in the 2019 law – called the Promoting Security and Justice for Victims of Terrorism Act – the PLO and Palestinian Authority would automatically “consent” to jurisdiction if they conduct certain activities in the United States or make payments to people who attack Americans.

“Congress’ judgment on these issues, as in all issues of national security and foreign policy, are entitled to great deference,” Deputy Solicitor General Edwin Kneedler, who argued on behalf of the Trump administration, told the justices.

Conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh agreed with Kneedler on that point.

“Congress and the president are the ones who make fairness judgments when we’re talking about the national security and foreign policy of the United States,” Kavanaugh said. “Unless it crosses some other textually or historically rooted constitutional principle, courts shouldn’t be coming in.”

Liberal Justice Elena Kagan pressed Kneedler on the possibility of giving Congress too much leeway in subjecting people around the globe to general jurisdiction in US courts, raising potential pitfalls such as retaliation against Americans on foreign soil.

“I could understand an argument which would say … it could have foreign policy consequences, it could encourage other nations to retaliate and treat US citizens in the same way,” Kagan said.

“There could well be problems, other countries’ reactions to that, and retaliation perhaps,” Kneedler responded.

A New York-based federal judge in 2022 ruled that the law violated the due process rights of the PLO and Palestinian Authorities guaranteed under the Constitution. The New York-based 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that ruling.

President Joe Biden’s administration initiated the government’s appeal, which subsequently was taken up by President Donald Trump’s administration.

Mitchell Berger, arguing on behalf of the Palestinian authorities, emphasized the need for US courts to enforce jurisdictional limits on what they can adjudicate, using pirates as an example.

“Nobody likes pirates, right,” Berger said. “The United States can define piracy as an offense, but the United States does not try pirates in absentia because there’s a delta between what Congress can prescribe as laws and what courts can do.”

Among the plaintiffs are families who in 2015 won a $655 million judgment in a civil case alleging that the Palestinian organizations were responsible for a series of shootings and bombings around Jerusalem from 2002 to 2004. They also include relatives of Ari Fuld, a Jewish settler in the West Bank who was fatally stabbed by a Palestinian in 2018.

“These defendants directed their activity at US citizens who are within the protection of the United States,” said Kent Yalowitz, arguing on behalf of the plaintiffs.

Yalowitz added that “wherever in the world you travel, the protection of the United States travels with you.”

A ruling is expected by the end of June.

The post US Supreme Court Weighs Law on Suing Palestinian Authorities Over Terror Attacks first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

An Israeli airstrike killed four people including a Hezbollah official in Beirut‘s southern suburbs on Tuesday, a Lebanese security source said, further testing a shaky ceasefire between Israel and the Iran-backed terrorist organization Hezbollah.

The Israeli military said the official – Hassan Bdeir – was a member of a Hezbollah unit and Iran’s Quds Force, and he had assisted the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas in planning a “significant and imminent terror attack against Israeli civilians.”

Hezbollah confirmed that Bdeir had been killed along with his son, who was also a member of the group. The Lebanese security source said Bdeir was a mid-ranking commander whose responsibilities included the Palestinian file.

The Lebanese health ministry said the strike killed four people – including a woman – and wounded seven others.

It marked Israel‘s second airstrike in the Hezbollah-controlled suburb of Beirut in five days, adding to strains on the US-brokered ceasefire that ended last year’s devastating conflict.

The attacks on Beirut‘s southern suburbs have resumed at a time of broader escalation in the region, with Israel having restarted Gaza strikes after a two-month truce and the United States hitting the Iran-aligned Houthis of Yemen in a bid to get them to stop attacking Red Sea shipping.

Hezbollah lawmaker Ibrahim Moussawi said the Israeli attack amounted to “a major and severe aggression that has escalated the situation to an entirely different level.”

Speaking in a televised statement after visiting the building that was struck, he called on the Lebanese state to “activate the highest level of diplomacy to find solutions.”

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said the eliminated Hezbollah operative posed “a real and immediate threat.” “We expect Lebanon to take action to uproot terrorist organizations acting within its borders against Israel,” he said.

Israel dealt severe blows to Hezbollah in the war, killing thousands of its fighters, destroying much of its arsenal and eliminating its top leadership, including Hassan Nasrallah.

Hezbollah has denied any role in recent rocket attacks from Lebanon towards Israel, including one that prompted Israel to carry out an airstrike on the southern suburbs last Friday.

Tuesday’s strike in the early hours appeared to have damaged the upper three floors of a building, a Reuters reporter at the scene said, with the balconies of those floors blown out.

The glass on the floors below was intact, indicating a targeted strike. Ambulances were at the scene as families fled to other parts of Beirut.

There was no advance warning, in contrast to the attack on Friday when the Israeli military announced which building it intended to hit and ordered residents to leave the area.

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun condemned the latest airstrike, calling it a “dangerous warning” that signals premeditated intentions against Lebanon, which would intensify diplomatic outreach and mobilize international allies.

Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam said the strike was a flagrant breach of a UN Security Council Resolution upon which the ceasefire was based, and the ceasefire arrangement.

US BACKS ISRAEL

The ceasefire agreement demanded that southern Lebanon be free of Hezbollah fighters and weapons, that Lebanese troops deploy into the area, and that Israeli troops withdraw.

But each side accuses the other of failing to implement the terms fully. Israel says Hezbollah still has infrastructure in the south, while Lebanon and Hezbollah say Israel is occupying Lebanese soil by not withdrawing from five hilltop positions.

The US State Department said that Israel was defending itself from rocket attacks that came from Lebanon and that Washington blamed “terrorists” for the resumption of hostilities.

“Hostilities have resumed because terrorists launched rockets into Israel from Lebanon,” a State Department spokesperson said in an email, responding to a question from Reuters seeking reaction to Tuesday’s airstrike. Washington supported Israel‘s response, the spokesperson said.

The Israel–Hezbollah conflict was ignited when Hezbollah opened fire in support of Hamas at the start of the Gaza war. It escalated in September when Israel went on the offensive, declaring the aim of securing the return home of tens of thousands of people evacuated from homes in the north.

The war uprooted more than a million people and killed at least 3,768 people in Lebanon, according to a Lebanese health ministry toll from November. Dozens more have been reported killed by Israeli fire since the ceasefire.

Lebanon’s figures do not distinguish between civilians and fighters.

During the war, Hezbollah strikes killed 45 civilians in northern Israel and the Golan Heights. At least 73 Israeli soldiers were killed in northern Israel, the Golan Heights, and in combat in southern Lebanon, according to Israeli authorities.

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The US on Tuesday imposed sanctions on entities and individuals in Iran, the United Arab Emirates, and China whom it accused of being part of an Iranian weapons procurement network, as President Donald Trump seeks to ramp up pressure on Tehran.

The US Treasury Department announced sanctions on six entities and two individuals in action taken in coordination with the Department of Justice, accusing them of responsibility for procurement of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) components on behalf of a leading manufacturer for Iran‘s drone program.

“Iran’s proliferation of UAVs and missiles – both to its terrorist proxies in the region and to Russia for its use against Ukraine – continues to threaten civilians, US personnel, and our allies and partners,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a statement.

“Treasury will continue to disrupt Iran’s military-industrial complex and its proliferation of UAVs, missiles, and conventional weapons that often end up in the hands of destabilizing actors, including terrorist proxies.”

Iran‘s mission to the United Nations in New York did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Tuesday’s action targeted one Iranian-based entity and two people based in Iran, one entity based in China, and four UAE–based entities, according to the Treasury statement.

The Treasury said it was the second round of sanctions targeting “Iranian weapons proliferators” since Trump restored his “maximum pressure” campaign on Iran, which includes efforts to drive its oil exports down to zero in order to help prevent Tehran from developing a nuclear weapon.

Trump’s February memo, among other things, ordered Bessent to impose “maximum pressure” on Iran, including sanctions and enforcement mechanisms on those violating existing sanctions.

Trump threatened Iran on Sunday with bombing and secondary tariffs if Tehran did not come to an agreement with Washington over its nuclear program.

In his first 2017-21 term, Trump withdrew the US from a 2015 deal between Iran and world powers that placed temporary limits on Tehran’s uranium enrichment activities in exchange for sanctions relief. Trump also reimposed sweeping US sanctions.

Since then, Iran has far surpassed that deal’s limits on uranium enrichment.

Western powers accuse Iran of having a clandestine agenda to develop nuclear weapons capability by enriching uranium to a high level of fissile purity, above what they say is justifiable for a civilian atomic energy program. Tehran says its nuclear program is wholly for civilian power purposes.

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