Palestinian-American billionaire accused of helping build ‘terror infrastructure’ for Hamas is sued

A Palestinan-American developer — whose work in the Middle East was featured on “60 Minutes” and who was reportedly advising President Trump’s hostage envoy — was sued Monday by nearly 200 family members of Americans killed in Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, terror attack for allegedly “aiding and abetting” the terror group as it planned its deadly incursion.

Bashar Masri, a naturalized American who has a home in Washington, DC, was accused of providing an “essential part” of Hamas’ “terror infrastructure” by facilitating the construction of tunnels and rocket launch sites as well as providing leaders like Yahya Sinwar the use of facilities and utilities at properties he owns in Gaza, according to the lawsuit filed in DC federal court.

That infrastructure was located at an industrial park just yards from Kibbutz Nahal Oz, near the Karni crossing from Israel into Gaza — and at two lavish hotels on the Mediterranean, which became the site of a pitched battle between the Israel Defense Forces and Hamas in the early months of the war.

“On and after October 7, Defendants provided electricity to Hamas and specifically to Hamas attack tunnels built under and into Defendants’ properties,” wrote attorney Lee Wolosky of Willkie Farr and Gallagher LLP, one of the attorneys representing the victims’ families, in the suit.

“Defendants provided services that legitimized Hamas and gave its operations under and within Defendants’ properties greater protection from Israeli and U.S. action. All of this assistance was beneficial to Hamas in sustaining its iron-fisted rule in Gaza and in committing acts of international terrorism.”

Wolosky has served in legal and national security roles under former Presidents Joe Biden, Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton — and joined Wilkie Farr after serving as Special Counsel in the Biden White House.

As recently as last month, Masri was advising President Trump’s then-envoy for hostage affairs Adam Boehler about postwar plans for Gaza, according to the Jerusalem Post, accompanying Boehler to diplomatic meetings in Doha, Qatar, and Cairo, Egypt.

Masri has long been a celebrated figure in Washington diplomatic circles — decades after helping with “planning” the First Intifada of 1987 against Israel — and was the driving force behind the creation of the “futuristic” city of Rawabi in the West Bank, according to a glowing “60 Minutes” profile from December 2019.

In an interview with CBS News’ Bill Whitaker, Masri characterized his property developments as “a shortcut” toward peace with Israel.

“If we can build a city — a futuristic city, a secular city, a democratic city — then we can build a state,” he said years after the announcement of the $350 million Rawabi project, which took “two-thirds of its capital” from a Qatari government-owned real estate investment company, according to the suit.

“I’m creating jobs for my fellow Palestinians. I am populating the land that if I’m not doin’ it, the settlers are. We’re not sugar-coating the occupation. We’re not normalizing with the occupation. We are defying the occupation.”

The entrepreneur’s holding company, Massar International, and his other businesses like the Palestine Development & Investment Company (PADICO) received millions of dollars from the United Nations, European Union, World Bank and the US Agency for International Development (USAID) to help develop the properties that contained the purported terror infrastructure.

Per a Sept. 21, 2023, announcement from PADICO, Masri — announced as the business’ chairman — got as much as $60 million in investments for solar energy projects in Gaza, 16 days before Hamas’ terror attack.

The industrial park, the Gaza Industrial Estate, was in part financed by the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation through a green energy initiative that set up solar panels — which later provided electricity to some of Hamas’ terror tunnels.

GIE took $10 million from the World Bank and was given a legal framework by USAID to begin construction in 1997, according to the civil complaint, and later raked in more “green energy” funding from the International Finance Corporation (IFC) after being hit with Israeli airstrikes following Hamas’ barrage of rocket attacks in May 2021.

GIE — which produced pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, furniture, textiles and bottles, among other products — had already gotten $6.93 million from the World Bank’s Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA) in 2017 for any future damages due to “war” or “civil disturbance,” after another Hamas conflict with Israel three years prior.

The lawsuit also stated that the UN Development Program and European Commission helped approve some funding to rebuild the industrial plant between 2016 and 2019.

Another joint venture agreement to place solar energy panels on the roof of GIE was presided over by Hamas’ Deputy Minister of Economy Abdel Fattah Zrai in May 2022, according to photos shared in the complaint.

Zrai was killed by the IDF last year.

“Above ground, the GIE was a showcase for legitimate businesses like Coca-Cola and a variety of light manufacturing companies,” according to the suit.

“But beneath the surface, Masri and the companies he controls worked with Hamas to construct and conceal an elaborate subterranean attack tunnel network which Hamas used to burrow under the border into Israel, to attack nearby Israeli communities, and to ambush Israeli military personnel.”

“Hamas even installed an anti-tank battery in one of the GIE’s water towers facing the border,” the suit added.

The hotels — the Blue Beach and the former Al Mashtal Hotel, now called the Ayan Hotel — were also used as a training ground for Hamas’ Qassam Brigades and had shafts on their premises that descended directly from some guest rooms into tunnels, according to the suit.

Other solar panels on the roof of the Blue Beach also allegedly provided electricity for Hamas tunnels.

Since-killed Hamas leader Sinwar also “regularly used the hotels to host public and private Hamas events,” according to the suit.

In 2021, the head of Egyptian intelligence visited the Al Mashtal, which the lawsuit describes as Hamas’ “command center,” for a meeting with Sinwar.

“As far back as 2014, Al Mashtal Hotel, adorned with large UN and EU signage on its roof, hosted a significant network of Hamas attack tunnels used to launch rockets into Israel and served as a command center for Hamas’s leaders during its conflict with Israel that summer,” the suit noted.

“In the following years, [Masri and his companies identified in the suit] worked closely with Hamas to renovate and refurbish the hotels, including electrical upgrades used to power Hamas’s tunnel network beneath them, and to restore and enhance the rocket launching sites positioned near the hotels, which Hamas deployed on October 7, 2023, and thereafter.”

Both hotels were destroyed by the IDF during their war against Hamas in Gaza.

The federal suit also identified Masri’s personal connections with Islamic University of Gaza engineering professor Dr. Muhamad Ziyara, who reportedly advised Hamas on the construction of its terror tunnels.

Hamas killed more than 1,200 people, mostly civilians and 46 of whom were American citizens, during the attack — while 254 were kidnapped and taken back to Gaza.

Dr. Dalal Iriqat, who sits on PADICO’s board, posted on X the same day as the Oct. 7 attack that the atrocities Hamas committed were part of a “normal human struggle.”

The civil suit filed in DC US District Court alleges Masri violated the Anti-Terrorism Act in “knowingly” assisting Hamas before it carried out the assault that became the deadliest day for the Jewish people since the Holocaust.

Israeli Ambassador to the US Yechiel Leiter, Israeli philanthropist Eyal Waldman, whose daughter was killed at the Nova music festival on Oct. 7, as well as family members of Itay Chen and the parents of slain hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin are all listed as plaintiffs.

The suit cites three causes of action under the Anti-Terrorism Act: aiding and abetting Hamas, conspiracy with Hamas, and providing material support to a US-designated foreign terrorist organization.

In addition to his development work, Masri sits on the Dean’s Council of Harvard Kennedy School.

Masri’s office said in a statement he “is a successful and respected Palestinian-American entrepreneur and business leader” who 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 office added. “Bashar Masri has been involved in development and humanitarian work for the past decades.

“His continued efforts to promote regional peace and stability have been widely recognized by the United States and all concerns [sic] parties in the region. He unequivocally opposes violence of any kind. He will seek the dismissal of these false allegations in court.”