Nitsana Darshan-Leitner. Photo: Mike Cohen.

Nitsana Darshan-Leitner

Lawyer and human rights activist

An Israeli lawyer and human rights activist, Nitsana Darshan-Leitner is the founder of Shurat Ha-Din, an Israeli law center that has pursued hundreds of lawsuits and legal actions on behalf of the victims of terrorism. In the last year alone, Darshan-Leitner and her organization have filed a writ at the District Court in Washington, DC for the purpose of seizing web domains belonging to the Iranian regime, and a war crimes complaint at the International Criminal Court in The Hague against Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal. Profiled in Newsweek in 2014 for her investigation into the Islamic State terrorist group, Darshan-Leitner explained the essence of her approach simply and directly: “The goal is to go after who funded the terrorism.”