EU funds attacks, Israeli lawsuit alleges

The lawsuit accuses the EU of 'recklessly' funding Arafat

An Israeli family is suing the European Union for 100m shekels ($20m), alleging that EU funding for the Palestinian Authority was used to launch attacks on Jewish civilians.

A spokesman for the European Commission said it has no evidence that money from its member states has been used to fund attacks.

The lawsuit was filed on Monday in Jerusalem by the family of Techiya Blumberg, a 35-year-old Israeli settler who was five-months pregnant when she was gunned down in the West Bank last August.

Without the EU's reckless provision of financing to the Palestinians, hundreds of Israeli terror victims would still be alive and thousands of others would never have had to suffer their tragic injuries

Lawyer Nitsana Darshan-Leitner

Her husband, Steven Blumberg, and her 14-year-old daughter were also injured in the attack and remain paralysed, the family's lawyer, Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, said in a statement.

Ms Darshan-Leitner alleged that the EU "recklessly provided the Palestinian Authority with massive amounts of financial aid, while knowing the money was being diverted from its intended civilian purposes to Palestinian terrorist groups".

Arrests

Israeli security forces arrested two members of the Palestinian security forces last year and accused them of participating in the attack on the Blumbergs.

The EU is the principle source of foreign aid for the Palestinian Authority.

Israel says EU funds have been used for violence

"We have yet to receive any evidence that the Palestinian Authority has misused our funds to fund terrorist activities," said David Kriss, a European Commission spokesman in Jerusalem.

"The Commission did say that they were treating these allegations made by the Israeli Government very seriously and that it awaits any evidence to show that those funds have been misused," he added.

But the lawsuit alleges the EU did not scrutinise its funding of the Palestinian Authority closely enough.

"Without the EU's reckless provision of financing to the Palestinians, hundreds of Israeli terror victims would still be alive and thousands of others would never have had to suffer their tragic injuries," Ms. Darshan-Leitner said.