Families of American victims of the Hamas-led October 7th terrorist attacks today (Monday) filed a lawsuit in U.S. federal court, accusing Palestinian-American billionaire Bashar Masri of knowingly providing substantial assistance to Hamas’s terror infrastructure in Gaza that carried out the deadliest attack in Israel’s history.
The lawsuit alleges that Masri, Chairman of the Palestine Development and Investment Company (PADICO) and Massar International, knowingly worked with Hamas for many years despite the group’s designation as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) by the US government since 1997. Masri is a naturalized American citizen with significant business ties to global corporations such as Apple and Nvidia, and he also sits on the board of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.
Through civil litigation under the Anti-Terrorism Act, American families of the victims of the October 7th attacks hope to hold Masri and the corporations he used to allegedly work with Hamas accountable for their contribution to the massacre.
The complaint states that international and US taxpayer-funded programs—intended for economic development—were diverted and exploited to support Hamas’s terror infrastructure. The Gaza Industrial Estate (GIE), one of the key Masri-controlled sites implicated in this lawsuit, was originally funded as a USAID initiative to promote economic growth in the region. However, the complaint states that there is evidence that while the GIE housed legitimate businesses, it also became a crucial Hamas operations hub, with its underground attack tunnels even burrowed under the border with Israel to allow Hamas to attack a nearby kibbutz and seize hostages.
The newly filed lawsuit alleges that Masri and his companies knowingly worked with Hamas to help support the terrorist organization’s attack tunnel infrastructure, supplying them with reliable electricity.
The plaintiffs are represented by leading law firms Osen LLC, Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP, Stein Mitchell Beato & Missner LLP, and Motley Rice LLC.
“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 U.S. taxpayer-funded institutions,” said Gary M. Osen, managing partner at Osen LLC. “Any assessment of the factors that enabled Hamas to carry out these unprecedented attacks is woefully incomplete without considering the terror tunnel network’s central role. Palestinian attack tunnels, which have plagued the Israeli people for more than a decade now, were activated to unprecedented levels on October 7th.”
According to the accusations in the new lawsuit, through a series of companies operating in the disputed territories, Masri allegedly controlled two luxury hotels and the leading industrial zone in Gaza – the Gaza Industrial Estate (GIE) – which was established in 1997 with funding by USAID. All three facilities allegedly facilitated the construction of tunnels used by Hamas in terrorist operations on and after October 7th, including rocket fire on Israeli cities.
The complaint alleges that on May 25, 2022, Masri personally presided over the signing of a joint venture agreement with Hamas to rebuild parts of the GIE. Hamas’s Deputy Minister of Economy, Abdel Fattah Zrai’, who was also involved in the Manufacturing Department of Hamas’s terror apparatus, represented Hamas at the signing ceremony.
The families of American victims of the October 7th attacks are seeking to hold Masri and his various corporate holdings accountable under the Anti-Terrorism Act. Forty-six Americans were among the more than 1,200 people murdered in the attacks.
“The lawsuit cites evidence that prominent Palestinian investors raised money from the World Bank, UN, the EU and others to build an industrial park as well as luxury hotels in Gaza, but then worked with Hamas to develop its terror tunnels beneath those same projects,” said plaintiff Izhar Shay, the State of Israel’s former Minister of Science & Technology, who lost his son Yaron in the October 7th attacks. “We can’t go back to a pre-October 7th mindset where people pretend that it is possible to support economic development in a Gaza controlled by Hamas without also supporting its terrorist infrastructure.”
“Since October 7th our priority has been to get our hostages back, but we're also seeking accountability and that includes accountability under American law — not just for Hamas but also for those who knowingly helped it,” said another plaintiff in the case, Iris Weinstein Haggai, whose parents were murdered on the morning of October 7th.
