A group of American victims of Palestinian terrorism, including the family of slain US Army Veteran Taylor Force, has filed a federal lawsuit demanding accountability from the Palestinian Authority and the Palestinian Liberation Organization over their ‘Pay-for-Slay’ policy.
Despite promising Western governments that it will reform, the PA continues to provide terrorists and their families with monthly stipends, the amount of which increases with the severity of the crime and length of sentence.
According to the lawsuit, almost eight percent of the PA’s annual budget is dedicated to the program. The new lawsuit, brought in Manhattan on behalf of plaintiffs Stuart Force and Hananel Gez, seeks to hold the PA and the PLO accountable for bankrolling terrorism.
Taylor Force was a Vanderbilt University MBA student and former Army officer who was killed in a terrorist attack in Tel Aviv in March 2016. Hananel Gez was injured in a terror attack in May 2025 while driving his wife, Tzeela Gez, and their unborn child, Ravid Haim Gez, to the hospital to be delivered. Both his wife and son were killed.
As of now, Taylor Force’s murderer continues to receive payments from Defendants, while the family of the terrorist who injured Gez and killed his wife and son has received at least one payment of NIS 6,000 and subsequent monthly payments of NIS 1,400 since June 2025.
“Mr. Force lost his son, and Mr. Gez, his wife and son, because of the actions promoted, subsidized, and rewarded by the PLO and PA,” said Erielle Azerrad, the attorney for the plaintiffs and member of the National Jewish Advocacy Center.
US Supreme Court ruled that American anti-terrorism laws apply to foreign entities
The new lawsuit would not be possible without the success of a separate case – the Fuld v. PLO case – earlier this year.
In June 2025, the US Supreme Court ruled that American anti-terrorism laws apply to foreign entities, opening the door to lawsuits and compensation for American victims of terrorism that was committed outside US soil.
The 2018 Taylor Force Act withholds American economic aid to the PA until it ceases its “pay-for-slay” policy, while the 2019 Promoting Security and Justice for Victims of Terrorism Act (PSJVTA) dictates that the PLO and PA subscribe to US jurisdiction should they persist in paying terrorists.
Despite the existence of both acts, it was not until the Fuld v. PLO case that victims and their families could seek financial recompense.
US Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the June ruling, “It is permissible for the federal government to craft a narrow jurisdictional provision that ensures, as part of a broader foreign policy agenda, that Americans injured or killed by acts of terror have an adequate forum in which to vindicate their right” to compensation.
The other basis for the Force & Gez vs PLO case is the 1992 Anti-Terrorism Act, which grants US citizens the right to sue individuals, organizations, or governments that carry out or support acts of terrorism, even if the attacks did not happen on US soil.
The plaintiffs are seeking compensatory damages in amounts to be determined at trial, as well as an injunction prohibiting the PLO and PA from disbursing payments to Palestinian terrorists imprisoned in Israel or to the families of terrorists killed or injured during or after committing terror attacks.
‘Exposing the lie’
"What the PA has done and consistently does is they play shell games or they shuffle around little pieces here and there and pretend they're not actually endorsing and supporting and inciting and even encouraging and glorifying this kind of terror," CEO of NJAC, Rabbi Dr Mark Goldfeder told The Jerusalem Post in a conversation about the case on Tuesday. Goldfeder is another of the attorneys for the plaintiffs.
This leads to one of the main incentives for the case: exposing the lie.
"At the end of the day, civil litigation can't stop terrorism on its own, but it can expose the lie that the PA is a moderating agent."
Goldfeder added that there are several other reasons why the case is particularly important now. One is that it comes less than a month or so after multiple countries such as France, Australia, and the United Kingdom rushed to formally recognize a Palestinian state at the UN General Assembly in New York. "To calm the critics, they attached a number of conditions, including an overhaul of Palestinian Authority governance, and the commitment to combat radicalization and violent extremism," he explained.
And the second reason why it is timely is that, in his 20 point Middle East plan, President Donald Trump lays out plans for a transitional governance with the hope that a reformed PA will ultimately lead a future government.
"That risks entrenching the very kind of pathologies that the plan is seeking to finally cure," said Goldfeder. "In practice it's repeating a very familiar pattern of awarding legitimacy in advance of any accountability. Because this is the same PA that has promised a hundred times to [reform], only to keep on [not] doing it every single time."
"So what we want to do really is to expose what the PA already knows and what these virtue signaling governments refuse to admit, which is that despite their assurances to everybody in the West, the pay-for-slay program is alive and well and it hasn't actually ended."
Goldfeder quoted PA leader Mahmoud Abbas as once saying that even if his government had only one penny left, it would go to the prisoners and the martyrs.
This, Goldfeder told the Post, should not be allowed to persist. While, as noted, civil litigation cannot stop terror, it can "impose financial consequences on people, bankroll bloodshed, and it can deliver justice - even if it's delayed - to families like Force's who have buried their children while their killers' families are cashing checks."
So what are the next steps? Before the suit can get to a hearing, the PA first has the opportunity to file a motion to dismiss or to file an answer to the complaint. The plaintiffs can then respond to the PA's response.
Then, and this could be in six to eight months down the road, the judge will either ask for a hearing or will make a decision just on the briefs and whether or not the plaintiffs have a case that can go forward. If there's a case that can go forward, then the judge will set a time for trial at some point down the line and open up discovery for around a year.
Right now, the plaintiffs are waiting for someone to appear on their behalf. The PA has notably and historically hired American law firms to represent them, as with the Fuld case.
One of the biggest challenges the plaintiffs are facing is the chance that the PA will refuse to appear, which would force them into a whole lengthy proceeding for a default judgment, which would be "very, very difficult to enforce internationally," according to Goldfeder.
But despite possible hurdles, Goldfeder and the other legal professionals are undeterred.
Jason Torchinsky, Partner at Holtzman Vogel and co-counsel on the case, added, “Congress and the US Supreme Court have made clear that it’s time for these victims to seek justice.”