Hostage family sues UNRWA for NIS 25 million over Oct. 7 abduction

The body of Jonathan Samerano was taken into Gaza by an UNRWA employee using an agency vehicle.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

The family of Jonathan Samerano, who was murdered during the Hamas-led invasion of Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and whose body was abducted into Gaza by an UNRWA employee, filed a NIS 25 million civil lawsuit Tuesday in the Jerusalem District Court against the UN agency.

The suit marks the first attempt by Israeli victims to hold UNRWA institutionally and financially accountable in an Israeli court for alleged involvement in the Oct. 7 massacre.

The Samerano family argues that UNRWA’s role went far beyond the isolated actions of a single employee —Hamas operative Faisal Ali Musallem al-Naami — whom they named as the one who took their son Samerano’s body into Gaza using an UNRWA vehicle after he was murdered near Kibbutz Be’eri.

IDF forces recovered the body, along with those of two other murdered hostages, in June 2025 and returned them to Israel for burial.

Citing Israeli intelligence assessments, the lawsuit states that approximately 10% of UNRWA staff in Gaza were members of Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad, while roughly half were close relatives of terrorist operatives.

UNRWA either knew of these affiliations or deliberately ignored them while its facilities, vehicles, and infrastructure were systematically used for terrorist activity, the suit alleges.

Israel also provided UNRWA in 2024 with detailed intelligence indicating that 19 of its employees took an active part in the Oct. 7 attack.

An ensuing UN-mandated “independent” investigation acknowledged involvement by only nine employees, who were subsequently dismissed.

UNRWA has consistently denied that it functioned as a cover for Hamas, including rejecting claims that it was aware of an extensive terror tunnel discovered beneath its Gaza headquarters early in the war, which was supplied by the building’s own electricity and water lines.

In a press briefing Sunday, Samerano’s father, Kobi Samerano, said: “My life stopped at the age of 48. I have not worked since then. I am a simple man, an ordinary citizen, fighting alone against powerful international bodies, and I demand one thing: that they take responsibility.”

The family is represented by the Shurat HaDin Israel Law Center, which specializes in civil and financial litigation against terrorist organizations and their state sponsors.

UNRWA has claimed immunity from suit as a UN body. Shurat Hadin countered that because the agency did not act as a neutral humanitarian organization, it forfeited the protections of diplomatic immunity.

Israeli legal authorities accepted that argument, allowing the case to proceed under Israel’s Compensation for Victims of Terrorism Law.

In addition to al-Naami and UNRWA as an institution, the lawsuit names several current and former senior UNRWA officials, including Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini.

UNRWA is also facing a $1 billion lawsuit in New York filed by more than 100 Oct. 7 victims or their relatives for aiding and abetting Hamas’ attack.