“It’s just hard to wrap your mind around the degree to which the owners of the properties were complicit,” a lawyer for the plaintiffs told JNS. “They not only go back and refurbish, invest more money and more of other people’s money, but assist Hamas with its tunnels again.”
(April 7, 2025 / JNS) — Around 200 American relatives of victims from Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack filed a lawsuit in D.C. federal court against Palestinian-American billionaire Bashar Masri. The suit alleges Masri aided Hamas by developing Gaza properties that concealed and powered Hamas’s terror tunnel network. It seeks damages under the Anti-Terrorism Act.
Masri, chairman of the Palestine Development & Investment Company, is accused of partnering with Hamas in operating hotels, an industrial park, and other businesses—one being Al Mashtal Hotel, previously identified by the IDF as a Hamas rocket site. The plaintiffs claim Masri repeatedly reinvested in damaged properties tied to Hamas operations.
Attorney Gary Osen said this pattern shows long-term complicity. Masri allegedly promoted green energy projects in Gaza just weeks before Oct. 7, some of which powered Hamas tunnels. A $60 million solar project and a 2022 agreement with Hamas’s deputy economy minister, later killed by the IDF, are among the evidence cited.
Masri denies the allegations, calling them “baseless,” and says he has always supported peace and opposed violence.
The lawsuit also highlights Masri’s past ties to Trump-era envoy Adam Boehler, who flew on Masri’s private jet during March talks with Hamas. Boehler, a former Trump appointee, remains a special envoy at the State Department.
The plaintiffs allege Masri misused U.S. aid money to support Hamas infrastructure, including the Gaza Industrial Estate, initially funded by USAID. One plaintiff, Naomi Feifer-Weiser, whose son Roey was killed on Oct. 7, said, “I hope this lawsuit exposes the ‘terrorists in suits’ who helped Hamas under the guise of economic development.”
Photo: Palestinian businessman Bashar Masri