Leading Palestinian-American businessman aided Hamas, lawsuit by Oct. 7 victims claims

A US lawsuit filed on Monday by victims of the October 7 attack claimed that a prominent Palestinian-American businessman, Bashar Masri, aided Hamas through business projects in the Gaza Strip.

The lawsuit argued that Hamas deceived Israel ahead of the invasion by feigning an interest in developing Gaza, and that Masri and his companies were “an integral part of that grand deception.”

“They owned and operated flagship properties in Gaza that they knowingly and deliberately integrated into Hamas’s terrorist infrastructure and that were crucial elements in Hamas’s attack plan on October 7,” the lawsuit said.

The plaintiffs were around 200 American victims of the October 7 attack and their family members, including the families of slain hostages Hersh Goldberg-Polin and Itay Chen, and Yechiel Leiter, Israel’s ambassador to the US, whose son was killed in Gaza in November 2023.

The lawsuit did not say that Masri knew about the October 7 attack, but it did assert that he was aware that Hamas was using his properties for military purposes.

The lawsuit said that Masri held longtime animosity toward Israel, including by helping plan the First Intifada. He sought to remake himself as a businessperson after moving to the US and investing in development projects in Palestinian areas, but continued “conspiring with Hamas” to build infrastructure used in the October 7 attack and provided cover for the terror group’s “true violent aims,” the lawsuit said. Masri used his image to solicit investments from US institutions, the World Bank, the United Nations and the European Union, it alleged.

Jon Polin and Rachel Goldberg-Polin, the parents of Hersh Goldberg-Polin who was murdered by Hamas terrorists in captivity in Gaza, speak during a rally calling for the release of all hostages, at Hostages Square in Tel Aviv, November 23, 2024. (Avshalom Sassoni/Flash90)

Some of Masri’s development projects appeared to be legitimate, but were also used to build and hide Hamas tunnels, store rockets, host Hamas leaders, train Hamas operatives, and produce electricity for Hamas tunnels, the case said.

The lawsuit focused on the Gaza Industrial Estate, a 480,000-square-meter industrial park across the border from Kibbutz Nahal Oz, one of the hardest-hit communities in the October 7 attack. The park was financed by USAID, the UN, the EU, and others. Masri coordinated the park’s development with Hamas, and the terror group built tunnels under the park, used the facility to probe the border fence and siphoned its electricity for tunnels, the lawsuit alleged. A water tower at the park held a Hamas anti-tank weapons installation in view of the border wall.

In May 2022, for example, Masri participated in a signing agreement with the Hamas deputy minister of economy to renovate the industrial park. Masri regularly visited the property after it housed Hamas tunnels and weaponry. Masri’s companies later condemned Israel for striking the properties, despite knowing they were used by Hamas, the lawsuit said.

Masri also oversaw two luxury hotels in Gaza that Hamas, including its late chief Yahya Sinwar, used to host events. The terror group’s tunnels ran underneath, and were connected to, the hotels, the suit said. One of the hotels, the Blue Beach, was allegedly connected by tunnel to a Hamas training facility. The terror group used the hotels as a base of operations and to ambush IDF troops, the lawsuit said.

Damaged plastic pipes are seen piled up outside a factory in the Gaza Industrial Estate after it was hit in Israeli attacks during an 11-day war with Hamas, May 24, 2021. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)

Masri’s office denied the allegations in a statement shared with The Times of Israel.

“He was shocked to learn through the media that a baseless complaint was filed today referring to false allegations against him and certain businesses he is associated with. Neither he nor those entities have ever engaged in unlawful activity or provided support for violence and militancy,” the statement said. “He unequivocally opposes violence of any kind. He will seek the dismissal of these false allegations in court.”

Masri is on the dean’s council at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, served on the advisory council for the US Development Finance Corporation from 2020-2023, and has been linked to the Trump administration. He led the development of Rawabi, a planned city in the West Bank and a major project.

The lawsuit seeks damages under the Anti-Terrorism Act and a trial by jury. It was filed in the federal district court of Washington, DC, where Masri has a residence. The law firms Willkie Farr & Gallagher, Osen, Stein Mitchell Beato & Missner, and Motley Rice are representing the plaintiffs.

“Our lawsuit not only seeks a measure of justice for the American victims of the October 7th attacks, but crucially, it strives to expose and hold accountable the various individuals and companies that aided and abetted Hamas’s brutal atrocities on that dark day — chief among them Bashar Masri and, regrettably, extending to international and US taxpayer-funded institutions,” Gary M. Osen, managing partner at Osen LLC, told The Times of Israel in a statement.

Masri was born in 1961 in the West Bank city of Nablus. He supported violence against Israel, and was jailed as a teenager for throwing stones at Israeli troops. He was released, finished high school in Egypt, and then attended college in the US. He returned to the Palestinian territories to participate in the First Intifada, then returned to the US, where he married an American and gained citizenship.

The lawsuit is the latest in a series of cases filed by Jewish advocates across the US, part of an ongoing and evolving legal battle that has gained steam since the October 7 attack.