A conversation with lead counsel Gary Osen about the intriguing case being brought by a group of American families—plus Israel’s ambassador to the United States—against Bashar Masri, a Palestinian American tycoon and Trump confidant, accusing him of collaborating with Hamas.
Born in Nablus, 64-year-old Bashar Masri participated in the First Intifada and was jailed by Israel eight times. But after becoming a naturalized US citizen in 1990, he went on to cultivate an image of a modernizer and economic bridge-builder in Palestinian society.
Chairman of the Palestine Development and Investment Company (PADICO) and CEO of Massar International, Masri is best known for spearheading Rawabi, the West Bank’s first planned city, as well as for launching the Siraj Fund, a $90 million equity fund for Palestinian startups and small businesses. In 2018, Fortune magazine ranked him number 38 on its list of “The World’s 50 Greatest Leaders.”
Moreover, according to a recent article by Israeli journalist Ben Caspit, Masri has been acting as a “close” adviser to Adam Boehler, the Trump administration’s special presidential envoy for hostage affairs, and he is viewed as a “pragmatic figure” who doesn’t have any ties to the Palestinian Authority or Hamas. Because he is in a uniquely influential position and is respected by both the American administration and Palestinian business circles, he has become a key figure in the efforts to address the challenges of rebuilding Gaza. However, a recently filed lawsuit against Masri in Washington, DC, paints a starkly different portrait—one of an active Hamas collaborator.
The lawsuit was brought by a team of leading America law firms, including Osen LLC, not only against Masri but against various corporations he controls. It was filed on behalf of numerous families of American victims of the October 7 atrocities that were committed by Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, as well as families of American citizens serving in the Israel Defense Forces who were killed or injured by those terrorist groups during the ensuing conflict.
The Shalom complaint—named after its first plaintiff, Tom Shalom—alleges that the defendants knowingly assisted, provided material support to and conspired with Hamas by developing properties used by Hamas for terrorism. According to the complaint, they owned and operated three key properties in Gaza that were integral to the group’s terrorist infrastructure: the Gaza Industrial Estate (GIE), a 480,000-square-meter industrial park near the Israeli border funded by USAID that allegedly concealed Hamas attack tunnels used on October 7; the Blue Beach Resort, a luxury hotel that allegedly contained a network of Hamas tunnels underneath it that are accessible through at least seven entrance shafts on the premises; and the Al Mashtal Hotel (rebranded Ayan Hotel), another luxury hotel that allegedly contained Hamas tunnel infrastructure used to launch rockets at Israel.
In addition, the complaint alleges that the defendants are directly collaborating with Hamas officials. It outlines multiple instances where Masri and his companies worked collaboratively with Hamas, including a May 2022 ceremony at which Masri presided over the execution of a joint venture agreement with the terrorist group to rebuild parts of the GIE, thereby providing Hamas crucial access to and participation in its design.
Moreover, it alleges that the solar power systems installed on the defendants’ properties, partially financed by international donors including the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation, provided electricity to Hamas’ tunnel networks beneath the GIE. The defendants are also alleged to have used construction projects to conceal Hamas’ excavation of the tunnels beneath their properties.
While Bashar Masri has vehemently denied any wrongdoing, a few short days after the lawsuit was filed he resigned from the Harvard Kennedy School Dean’s Council. Masri had served on this board—a group of roughly 70 high-profile donors and business executives that directly advised Dean Jeremy M. Weinstein—since 2014. A spokesperson for the Council confirmed Masri’s resignation in a statement, writing that “the lawsuit raises serious allegations that should be vetted and addressed through the legal process.”
To understand more about this case, I spoke with Gary Osen, managing partner of Osen LLC.
This is a fascinating story. Not only is the complaint multifaceted, but the entire lawsuit seems to have many layers.
The people who put it together have more than ten or even 20 years of experience in dealing with these kinds of cases, so I hope we are bringing a certain degree of professional sophistication to the process.
In addition to the allegations that are being made against the defendants, there is so much historical background involved. Would that be a fair assessment?
Yes. It’s always a challenge, because both judges and the general public, even if they follow the news pretty closely, don’t always understand the nuances of the broader context. For example—and this isn’t a criticism of anyone—I don’t think that the average person gives any thought to what the tunnels in Gaza really entail: the engineering involved, their sophistication, their infrastructure, or the fact that they need power supplies for ventilation as well as lighting. It’s not the kind of tunnel system that most of us associate with prison escapes or POWs crawling under a fence. These are permanent structures intended to host multiple fighters, sometimes for extended periods of time, which means that in order to render them safe and not turn them into death traps for their inhabitants, they have to be reinforced with concrete, especially because they’re often running under large and heavy structures.
In other words, these are complex engineering projects that require a lot of expertise as well as materials and money. They aren’t makeshift at all. All of these things, as well as the context of Gaza and its political environment, are important in order to understand what happened in this specific case.
Is being connected to the construction of these tunnels Masri’s primary crime?
Yes. The focus is on Hamas’ attack tunnels, which the complaint addresses in great detail. Hamas built different types of tunnels for different purposes. In the Philadelphi Corridor, the tunnels were primarily intended for smuggling commercial goods and weapons. But the tunnels that are discussed in this case aren’t smuggling tunnels; they’re attack or combat tunnels, which are designed to facilitate the launching of rockets at Israel, in other cases to ambush Israeli forces when they enter the Gaza Strip, or in still other cases as an access point to the sea. There are tunnel shafts that were identified by the IDF on the grounds of the Blue Beach Hotel that link up to the Izzadin al-Qassam Brigades of Hamas, which is their version of the Navy Seals. They had a base across the street from the hotel through which they could gain access to the Mediterranean without being visible by drone or satellite.
How connected was Masri to this entire project?
We don’t allege that he himself is a Hamas agent, operative or supporter, and we certainly don’t allege that he had foreknowledge of the October 7 attack. What we do allege is that he and his companies did business with Hamas and didn’t just cooperate but actively collaborated with them. They knew that the hotels served as protective cover for their terrorist operations because they hosted journalists, UN officials and other foreign VIPs, so from an Israeli targeting standpoint they were, if not completely off limits, then at least mostly out of bounds. Building the tunnel infrastructure under them served a similar purpose as the tunnels that were built under mosques and hospitals. It dares the IDF to take retaliatory action and face the inevitable outcry from the media that Israel is targeting civilian infrastructure. This is very much in keeping with Hamas’ longstanding playbook of using purely civilian infrastructure as a human shield against retaliation.
Of course, every aspect of that is a violation of every single international law of war. Making your properties available to support this kind of activity is also a clear violation of US criminal law, and in our view it’s a classic case of aiding and abetting a foreign terrorist organization.
What is the extent of Masri’s companies’ involvement? Do you have evidence that they granted permission for the tunnels to be built, or is it just the fact that they were built under those buildings?
It’s not just granting permission, it’s working with Hamas on the excavation and maintenance of the tunnels as well as providing them with electricity to power their lighting and ventilation. This is important, because the complaint alleges that they contracted with a Qassam Brigades-affiliated company that did work both above and below ground. Providing electricity to the tunnel system was key to making it operationally functional so it would be effective in killing Israelis, and in that process, killing American citizens as well. It’s not just a passive role but an active one. The complaint cites PADICO’s own website, which features Masri at a signing ceremony in 2022 for an agreement with a Hamas deputy minister who was later killed by the IDF in 2024 and identified as the head of infrastructure for the Qassam Brigades. This is someone who is openly collaborating with Hamas to build its physical terror infrastructure.
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