Bat Yam Mayor Serves Iran UN Official With $65 Million Lawsuit

By كل العرب

Translated & summarized from Alarab by baba

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Bat Yam Mayor Zvika Brot and his team served a 250 million shekel lawsuit to a senior Iranian diplomat at the UN in Manhattan. The suit seeks damages for a June 2025 Iranian missile attack that killed nine and injured 178 in Bat Yam. The municipality is pursuing compensation and hopes to collect from funds Israel owes Iran. Iran has 60 days to respond to the legal action.

The story in 5 lines · by baba

Bat Yam Mayor Zvika Brot served a 250 million shekel lawsuit to an Iranian UN official in Manhattan.
The lawsuit seeks damages for a June 2025 Iranian missile attack that killed nine and injured 178 in Bat Yam.
The operation involved four months of secret preparations and a public confrontation with the diplomat.
The municipality hopes to collect damages from funds Israel owes Iran from an old oil pipeline project.
Iran has 60 days to respond to the lawsuit, or a default judgment may be issued.

Bat Yam Mayor Serves Iran UN Official With $65 Million Lawsuit — Editorial illustration generated by baba News, not a photograph of the event.

The mayor of Bat Yam, Zvika Brot, along with aides, executed an operation dubbed "Open Account" in Manhattan to serve a lawsuit to a senior Iranian official at the United Nations. The suit seeks 250 million shekels (approximately $65 million) in damages for harm caused to the city by an Iranian missile attack during a recent war in June 2025. The operation, which involved four months of covert preparations including intelligence gathering on Iranian diplomats' movements, took place on the streets of New York.

The team identified and approached a First Secretary of the Iranian UN mission as he exited a building. After the diplomat stated he could not engage due to his position and attempted to leave, the group followed him for several minutes before reading him the contents of the lawsuit. This action is part of a larger lawsuit filed by the Bat Yam municipality with the Jerusalem District Court against the Islamic Republic of Iran.

The lawsuit demands compensation for damages from the missile attack, which resulted in nine fatalities, 178 injuries, and damage to 160 buildings, 22 of which required immediate demolition. Thousands of residents were displaced. International lawyers, led by the organization Shurat HaDin under Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, are handling the case, which has been translated into Persian.

Iran has 60 days to respond to the lawsuit, after which Bat Yam can seek a default judgment. The municipality hopes to collect damages from approximately $1.1 billion that reports indicate Israel owes Iran from an international arbitration concerning Iran's share in the Eilat-Ashkelon oil pipeline project, dating back to before the Islamic Revolution. Mayor Brot stated, "Our city has an open account with Iran. They sent us missiles, we sent them the bill," vowing to continue efforts to hold Iran accountable.