Rabbi Leo Dee hits Palestinian Authority with £10m lawsuit over his family’s murder

Rabbi Leo Dee has filed a £10.5 million lawsuit against the Palestinian Authority over the murder of his wife and two daughters just over 18 months ago in the Jordan Valley.

Speaking to the JC during a visit to the UK, Rabbi Dee, who is British-Israeli, took aim at the PA’s notorious “pay for slay” system, otherwise known as the “Martyrs’ Fund”, which pays monthly stipends to the families of Palestinian terrorists killed while attacking Israelis.

Rabbi Dee called it “largest terror funding scheme in the world”.

On April 7, 2023, exactly six months before the Hamas terrorist attack on southern Israel, the rabbi’s wife, Lucy, and their two daughters, Maia and Rina, were shot dead as they travelled to Tiberias to celebrate Passover.

Rabbi Dee told the JC that while the money would not do anything to assuage his family’s sorrow, it would bring some measure of justice. He added that large numbers of lawsuits had the potential to bankrupt the PA.

He said: “I urge all victims of terror in Israel to sue the PA, and together we can deprive them of the ability to fund the next generation of terrorists. It is a highly underrated form of warfare but very effective, because the more we target the financing of terror, the quicker we can end this cycle of terror and the perpetuation of injustice.

“Any penny we can deprive them of goes to fighting the incentivisation of terror around the world.”

The British government funds the PA to the tune of about £10 million a year, of which an estimated 20 per cent goes to "pay for slay” payments.

“Imagine, I cannot get funding via the current British terror compensation system because I’m not now a resident of the UK, but the Palestinian terror which killed my daughters and wife is getting funded in part by the British taxpayer,” Dee said.

“The system as it is now, allows for Brits to fund terror but not the victims of it.”

Shurat HaDin, an Israeli law centre that specialises in targeting the finances of terrorist organisations, is acting for Rabbi Dee.

A law enacted earlier this year by the Israeli government, the Compensation for Victims of Hostile Action Act, allows victims of terrorist attacks and their families to seek financial compensation from the PA.

Large amounts of money belonging to the PA is held in Israeli banks, and Israelis suing the authority can now claim from those accounts through Israeli courts.

The law allows victims of terrorism to claim NIS 10 million for the deaths of next of kin and NIS 5 million shekels for each family member.