Leading Palestinian American drops Harvard position after claims he aided Hamas

A prominent Palestinian-American businessman, Bashar Masri, quit his position at Harvard University after a lawsuit alleged that he aided Hamas with development projects in Gaza, according to a Thursday report.

Masri served on the dean’s council at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. The school confirmed to The New York Post that Masri had resigned after the lawsuit was filed by victims of the October 7, 2023, attack and their families.

“The lawsuit raises serious allegations that should be vetted and addressed through the legal process,” a spokesperson for the Kennedy school told the news outlet.

The lawsuit, filed on Monday, 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.

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.

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.

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.”

In addition to his position at Harvard, Masri 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.