Israeli City of Bat Yam Sues Iran for $65 Million Over Deadly 2025 Missile Strike
The coastal city south of Tel Aviv wants Iran to pay for the June 2025 strike that killed nine civilians, and it hopes to collect from money Israel already owes Tehran.
See where this is ›BAT YAM, Israel —
The city of Bat Yam, on Israel's Mediterranean coast just south of Tel Aviv, filed a lawsuit against Iran on Sunday, Nov. 8, asking for 208 million shekels, about $65 million, in damages from an Iranian ballistic missile strike in June 2025, JNS reported.
The claim was filed in the Tel Aviv District Court through Shurat HaDin, the Israel Law Center, according to JNS. Mayor Zvika Brot and Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, the attorney who serves as Shurat HaDin's president, delivered the court papers to Iran's Mission to the United Nations in New York last week.
The missile hit a residential building on Jerusalem Street in a civilian neighborhood of Bat Yam during the barrage Iran launched the night of June 14, 2025, in the war Israel called Operation Rising Lion. Nine civilians were killed, including children, and hundreds were injured, JNS reported. Shurat HaDin said destruction spread across about 150,000 square meters and hundreds of families had to leave their homes.
See where this is ›The city is asking to be repaid for evacuating residents, hotel stays and other temporary housing, social-welfare aid, security, debris removal, temporary staff and the repair of public spaces, according to the report.
Citing the Israeli news site Ynet, JNS reported that Iran has 60 days to answer the claim. If it does not, the city can ask the court for a default judgment. Israeli law requires proof that an official representative of the defendant received the papers, which is why they were handed to Iran's U.N. mission.
Bat Yam hopes to collect from about $1.1 billion that a Swiss arbitration panel ordered Israel in 2015 to pay Iran for its share in the Eilat-Ashkelon Pipeline Company, a stake dating to the era of the Shah. The Swiss Supreme Court upheld the order in 2016, but Israel has not paid, citing an Israeli law that bars dealings with enemy states, JNS reported.
What we don't know yet: Iran has not publicly responded to the claim, and Watchman News could not independently confirm the filing beyond the JNS report. It is not clear whether an Israeli court can or will release any of the pipeline money to the city.
