Families of the American victims involved in the October 7, 2023 attack have filed a lawsuit against billionaire Bashar Masri, alleging that he aided Hamas as it planned the attack.
Masri reportedly advised the Trump administration’s hostage negotiator, Adam Boehler.
“He is portrayed in the lawsuit as a central figure who leveraged his cultivated image as a peace-building entrepreneur to secure funding while covertly supporting Hamas,” attorney Marina Medvin wrote on X. “In summary, this lawsuit alleges that Masri and his companies were complicit in Hamas’s October 7 attack and subsequent violence by providing critical support and cover, causing profound harm to the American victims and their families, for which they now seek justice and compensation,” she added.
According to the lawsuit, “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.”
“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 IDF eventually struck the launch sites and damaged the hotel,” the lawsuit claims.
“In the following years, Defendants 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,” it continues. “Hamas’s terrorist tunnel network not only ran under Masri’s hotels, but the tunnels were accessible directly from guest rooms and other facilities inside the hotels.”
The filing is brought under the Anti-Terrorism Act.
Masri’s office said in a statement obtained by the New York Post that the businessman 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. Bashar Masri has been involved in development and humanitarian work for the past decades,” the office added. “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.”
