A case filed on behalf of nearly 200 American families of victims of the Palestinian Hamas massacre of Israelis on October 7 claimed that Bashar Masri, a Palestinian-American businessman, provided substantial support to Hamas, enabling the terrorist organization to build its terrorist infrastructure and attack Israel. The lawsuit seeks damages under the Anti-Terrorism Act and was filed in the U.S. District Court for Washington, D.C., is believed to be the first case of a U.S. citizen being accused of providing significant support for the attacks.
Bashar Masri (Photo via Wikipedai)
The lawsuit claims that Hamas succeeded in deceiving Israel by using development companies as a cover for building its terrorist infrastructure. The lawsuit claims 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.
According to a statement announcing the lawsuit, Masri was aware that properties he owned, developed, and controlled “concealed tunnels underneath them, and had tunnel entrances accessible from within the properties, which Hamas used in terrorist operations before, on, and after October 7th.”
The lawsuit focuses on three of Masri’s developments: the Gaza Industrial Estate — a 480,000 square meter industrial park in northern Gaza that the plaintiffs claim was a cover for “an elaborate subterranean attack tunnel” — and two hotels from which Hamas officials allegedly hosted events and launched rockets into Israel. 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. A water tower at one of his projects held a Hamas anti-tank weapons installation that overlooked the border wall. Hamas tunnels were connected to two of his hotels, which were used as a base of operations and to ambush IDF troops.
“Defendants facilitated the construction and concealment of those tunnels and even built above-ground solar panel installations that they then used to supply Hamas with electricity to the tunnels,” the case said.
Masri used his image to solicit investments from US institutions, the World Bank, the United Nations, and the European Union, it alleged. Basri has also been accused of using United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and internationally funded Gaza infrastructure projects to facilitate the construction of Hamas terror tunnels. It is alleged that the tunnel network was built with the help of infrastructure and energy projects financed by international institutions, including the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation.
“Our goal is to expose those who have aided and abetted Hamas and to try and bring accountability to individuals and companies that have presented a legitimate and moderate image to the Western world but have actively and knowingly helped Hamas,” Lee Wolosky of the Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP law firm, lead attorney representing the plaintiffs, said in the statement.
“Neither he nor those entities have ever engaged in unlawful activity or provided support for violence and militancy,” Masri’s office said in a statement. “He unequivocally opposes violence of any kind. He will seek the dismissal of these false allegations in court.”
Masri resigned from his position on the dean’s council at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. Since 2018, Masri has also funded the Rawabi Fellowship, which pays for Palestinian students to attend Harvard’s Kennedy School.
“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 school currently enrolls only one Palestinian student.
Masri was born in Shechem (Nablus) in Shomron (Samaria), Israel, to a prominent Arab family whose members served as ministers in the Jordanian and Palestinian governments. Masri, now 63 years old, took part in planning attacks during the first Intifada, a violent wave of attacks targeting Israeli citizens from 1987 to 1993.
In an interview in 2014, Masri stated unequivocally, “As a kid, I believed in violence.” He was arrested by the Israeli security forces in 1975 for violence against Israelis at the age of 14 and again in 1975. After completing high school, he left to study in Egypt. He was classified as a security risk and was not permitted to reenter Israel until 1994.
