US Secretary of State Clinton sued over Palestinian aid

WASHINGTON (AFP) - US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the State Department are being sued for allegedly allowing American aid money meant for the Palestinian Authority to be used by terror groups like Hamas.

The lawsuit was filed on Monday in Washington on behalf of 24 US citizens living in Israel by the Israel Law Center, a Tel Aviv-based legal group that specialises in fighting "terrorist organisations and the regimes that support them," according to its website.

The suit accuses the defendants of having "authorised, sanctioned, encouraged, and/or facilitated funding to the Palestinian Authority without imposing the controls and oversight mandated by federal statute," especially the Palestinian Anti-Terrorism Act of 2006.

This resulted in US taxpayers dollars ending up in the hands of terror groups like Hamas and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and other individuals and groups barred from federal funds, the lawsuit alleges.