A Palestinian-American billionaire with close ties to the Trump administration has stepped down from the dean’s council at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government following a lawsuit filed by nearly 200 Israelis whose relatives were killed in the October 7, 2023, cross-border Hamas attack that left more than 1,200 dead.
Bashar Masri allegedly “aided and abetted” Hamas by “actively working with [the terrorist organization] to build and maintain its attack tunnel infrastructure while simultaneously advancing Hamas’s campaign of deception,” according to a civil complaint filed Monday in Washington, D.C. federal court.
A representative for Masri denied the being involved in “unlawful activity’ and said he has been involved in humanitarian work for the past decade.
“Mr. Masri has resigned from the Dean’s Council,” a spokesperson for the Kennedy School of Government told the New York Post on Thursday. “The lawsuit raises serious allegations that should be vetted and addressed through the legal process.”
Masri, who has advised Adam Boehler, President Donald Trump's special envoy for hostage affairs on future plans for the Gaza Strip, helped Hamas “renovate and refurbish… 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,” according to the complaint, which says Hamas used the locations to pull off the October 7 incursion.
“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 complaint states. “... During and after the October 7 Attack, Hamas used Defendants’ hotels and the tunnel network connected to them both as a base of operations and a defensive position from which to later ambush IDF troops.”
The families are bringing the action under the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act, or, “JASTA.”
Masri, who keeps a home in Washington, D.C., supervised the construction via a number of holding companies which “provided services that legitimized Hamas and gave its operations… greater protection from Israeli and U.S. action,” the complaint claims. He “developed and operated prime properties in Gaza for outwardly legitimate purposes,” it goes on. “But in reality, they were also used to construct and conceal Hamas’s attack tunnels, store and launch its rockets at Israel, host Hamas leadership and foot soldiers, train Hamas naval commandos – and even to produce electricity for Hamas’s attack tunnel infrastructure.”
However, in a statement provided on Monday to Reuters and other news outlets, Masri’s office said, “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.”
Attorney Lee Wolosky, who is representing the families suing Masri, has served under former Presidents Joe Biden, Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton. Co-counsel Gary Osen has represented the families of numerous Jews who had art seized by the Nazis.
The “crown jewel” of Masri’s Gaza properties, according to the complaint, was the Gaza Industrial Estate, a 480,000 square-meter industrial park hard by the border fence with Israel and Kibbutz Nahal Oz, “a community that was decimated during the October 7 Attack,” the complaint states.
“Above ground, the GIE was a showcase for legitimate businesses like Coca-Cola and a variety of light manufacturing companies,” the complaint goes on. “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 also used the GIE to “probe the border fence and test the IDF’s response times and countermeasures in the lead up to the October 7 attack,” according to the complaint, which accuses Hamas of installing an anti-tank battery in one of the GIE’s water towers facing the border.
Masri owned and operated two other luxury seaside hotels, the Blue Beach and the Al Mashtal – later known as the Ayan Hotel – which were used by Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar for Hamas events, the complaint continues.
“Hamas officials also used the hotel for private functions, relaxing in the luxury accommodations and facilities that few Gazans could afford,” it says.
The properties were used as bases of operations and defensive positions on October 7, and were later damaged heavily by Israeli forces, according to the complaint. When Israeli troops eventually stormed the Al Mashtal, Hamas operatives “opened fire from a children’s play area on the premises (not far from the hotel’s pool area),” the complaint states.
“When they gained control of the play area, the IDF recovered a weapons cache and discovered a tunnel shaft linked to the attack tunnels beneath the hotel complex,” it says. “Subsequent searches of the hotel’s rooms found a variety of weapons, including rifles, ammunition, and mortars.”
Masri “knowingly providing material support” to Hamas, a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization, and thus, is liable for damages, according to the complaint. He has been a member of the Kennedy School’s Dean’s Council since 2014.
