A billionaire American-Palestinian businessman has been sued by grieving families of victims of the October 7 terror attack in Israel.
Bashar Masri has been accused of allowing Hamas to construct the infrastructure needed to carry out their sick attack, which left 1,200 dead and sparked the ongoing conflict in Gaza, Mail Online reports.
The lawsuit accuses the wealthy developer of knowing that Hamas militants were constructing elaborate tunnels underneath his properties in Gaza to ‘store and launch its rockets at Israel.’
Those tunnels have been central to Hamas’ operations, concealing hostages taken from the 2023 attack on the Nova Music Festival alongside scores of weapons.
‘The properties defendants developed with Hamas were not only part of the infrastructure Hamas used in connection with the Oct. 7 attack itself,’ the lawsuit stated.
‘Their development deliberately advanced Hamas’s false narrative that it was interested primarily in the economic development of Gaza and a grudging coexistence with Israel.’
Masri, named by the World Economic Forum as a ‘Global Leader of Tomorrow’ and a graduate of Virginia Tech, maintains the allegations are baseless and is seeking to have the lawsuit dismissed.
‘Neither he nor those entities have ever engaged in unlawful activity or provided support for violence and militancy,’ his office said in a statement.
‘His continued efforts to promote regional peace and stability have been widely recognized by the United States and all concerned parties in the region. He unequivocally opposes violence of any kind.’
It was filed in the Federal District Court in Washington, where Masri has a home, and is considered the first of its kind.
Forty-six Americans were killed in the initial attack.
The lawsuit does not accuse Masri of knowing that the October 7 attack was going to take place, only that he knew Hamas had stored the military infrastructure.
It states that Masri’s investments in Gaza directly benefited Hamas. One of his properties, an industrial park near the Israeli border, had an ‘elaborate subterranean attack tunnel network’ which was ‘siphoning electricity from their World Bank-funded solar project.’
His Blue Beach Resort allegedly also had a complex tunnel system which linked it to a Hamas training base. Israel’s Defense Forces claimed the hotel was also used ‘as a shelter where [Hamas] planned and executed attacks both above and below ground.’
Finally, the lawsuit cites the Israeli army’s intel allegations that Masri’s Ayan Hotel was used as a base to fire rockets from, and that tunnels underneath the hotel were accessible from certain guest rooms and facilities.
Both hotels were damaged when Israel retaliated against the October 7 attack.
The lawsuit was filed on behalf of 200 plaintiffs, including the family of Hersh Goldberg-Polin, one of the Israeli American victims who was initially taken hostage but later killed.
Masri’s former business partner Eyal Waldman, whose daughter was killed on October 7 at the festival, is also part of the lawsuit.