Bereaved families of victims of the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, massacre sent a letter on Thursday to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Jerusalem Mayor Moshe Lion, urging them to block municipal approval of the granting of land to Palestinian-American businessman Bashar al‑Masri for the purpose of building a hotel.

“A massive lawsuit has been filed in the United States by 200 families of those murdered on Oct. 7 against al-Masri, the Palestinian millionaire, alleging that he financed Hamas and enabled the organization to use facilities he owns in the Gaza Strip—a beachfront hotel and an industrial area near the border with Israel,” the letter read.

The Jerusalem Municipal District Planning Committee is set to convene on Feb. 9 to authorize the move, which concerns land opposite the Old City.

“We call on the acting minister of the Interior, Prime Minister Mr. Benjamin Netanyahu, and the Mayor of Jerusalem, Mr. Moshe Leon, to immediately halt this moral outrage and remove the proposal from the committee’s agenda,” the letter continued.

The request added that the lawsuit filed in April prompted Harvard University to immediately remove al-Masri from his position on its board of directors.

“The lawsuit argues that it is inconceivable that the owners of these properties were unaware of what was taking place beneath the ground under their assets, especially given the fact that they supplied them [Hamas terrorists] with electricity and water,” according to the bereaved families.

The letter was signed on behalf of Ruby Chen, the father of Staff Sgt. Itay Chen, who was killed in action defending Kibbutz Nahal Oz; Eyal Waldman, the father of Daniel Waldman, who was murdered with her boyfriend, Noam Shai, at the Supernova music festival; and former Science Minister Izhar Shay, the father of Sgt. Yaron Uri Shay, who died defending Kibbutz Kerem Shalom.

The fathers charged in the letter: “That same so-called ‘terrorist in a suit,’ who hosted senior Hamas officials in his hotel in Gaza and simultaneously allowed them to use facilities beneath the hotel, is now about to build a hotel here, in Israel! … And this absurdity is sickening when it is enabled by the murdered themselves. The message for us, the bereaved families, is: Murder Jews today, profit from it tomorrow. The blood of our children is no longer merely abandoned—it has become a profitable real-estate plan. … This inconceivable absurdity must be stopped.”

The suit filed on April 7 in the United States accuses al-Masri, who has ties to the Trump administration, of knowingly working with Hamas in developing business properties in Gaza that concealed and provided electricity to the terrorist group’s elaborate, militarized tunnel network. It seeks damages under the Anti-Terrorism Act.

Al-Masri was born in Nablus to a prominent and wealthy family of Palestinian businessmen and was educated in Egypt and the United States, graduating from Virginia Tech and eventually becoming a U.S. citizen. In the mid-1990s, he returned to Ramallah and founded a variety of business ventures.

Through his company and investments in or control of other entities, al-Masri runs or has stakes in some of the largest Palestinian companies, with market caps of hundreds of millions of dollars on the Nablus-based Palestine Exchange stock market.

Al-Masri has also provided advice and private plane travel to Adam Boehler, U.S. President Donald Trump’s special presidential envoy for hostage affairs, as he conducted unprecedented direct negotiations with Hamas terrorists in March.

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