A landmark lawsuit filed in Israel seeks to hold Meta accountable for allegedly facilitating the October 7 attack on Israel by allowing footage of Hamas’s atrocities to circulate unchecked on Facebook and Instagram. 

Families and victims of the October 7, 2023, attack filed the class action in Tel Aviv District Court on Monday and are seeking $1.1 billion in damages. The suit represents the first civil case of its kind filed in Israel and raises broader questions about social media platforms’ responsibility regarding terrorist content.

Social media became a central tool for Hamas to further terrorize Israeli society during and following its October 7 attack. Terrorists documented themselves murdering and abducting Israeli civilians using body cameras and, in some instances, recorded atrocities on victims’ phones and posted the footage to the victims’ social media accounts. 

The plaintiffs argue that the social media company violated its own policies by allowing “horrific documentation” of Hamas’s “murder, extreme violence, hostage-taking” to remain online for hours or even days after the attack. 

They accuse Meta of making several key missteps both at the time of the attack and after, including not taking action to activate live content monitoring systems, failing to deploy a rapid response team, and neglecting to remove the content in a timely manner. 

The company’s failures enabled terrorists to use Facebook and Instagram as a “weapon,” and made the social media platforms into “an inseparable part of the terrorist attack on the State of Israel,” the plaintiffs argue.

“The platforms became a pipeline for terror,” the complaint states. “Meta had the tools to stop it—but did nothing.”

The lawsuit is championed by a family whose home in Kibbutz Nahal Oz was stormed by Hamas terrorists on October 7. The terrorists murdered the family’s eldest daughter, Maayan Idan, in front of her parents and kidnapped her father into Gaza, where he was later killed in captivity. The entire assault was livestreamed on Facebook. 

Several of the suits’ plaintiffs share similarly haunting experiences. Mor Beider discovered that her grandmother, a resident of Kibbutz Nir Oz, had been killed after Hamas terrorists shared footage of her lying in a pool of blood on Facebook. Stav Arava watched in horror as terrorists livestreamed themselves coercing at gunpoint his 17-year-old brother, Tomer Arava-Eilaz, to lure his neighbors at Kibbutz Nahal Oz out of their homes. 

“The horrific footage distributed by Facebook and Instagram on October 7 trampled the petitioners’ rights in the most harrowing way imaginable,” the complaint reads. “These scenes of brutality, humiliation, and terror are permanently etched into the memories of the victims’ families and the Israeli public as the final moments of their loved ones’ lives.”

Maayan Idan’s cousin, Adam Ma’anit, who is also participating in the lawsuit, stated online that “Meta didn’t just hand Hamas the mic — their algorithm cranked the volume up, signal‑boosting terrorist snuff videos to the world and compounding our family’s trauma further.” 

The lawsuit requests compensation of 200,000 shekels, or approximately $58,000, for each October 7 victim whose suffering was broadcast online and for each of their immediate family members and close friends who were exposed to the footage. The plaintiffs also call on Meta to fork over 20,000 shekels, or $5,000, for each Israeli exposed to the footage. The total damages amount to approximately $1.1 billion. 

Meta responded to the lawsuit by stating to Calcalist, “Our hearts go out to the families affected by Hamas terrorism. Our policy designates Hamas as a proscribed organization, and we remove content that supports or glorifies Hamas or the October 7 terrorist attack.”

The social media conglomerate added: “Following the attacks, we established dedicated teams that work around the clock to remove content that violates our policy, while ensuring our platforms remain available for condemning Hamas and raising awareness for the victims, including the hostages held in Gaza.”