18 No. 76 JUSTICE he October 7, 2023, massacres were the worst massmurder of Jews since the Holocaust. In the years since, thousands of young Israelis have risked their lives seeking to uproot Hamas and rescue the hundreds of men, women, and children taken hostage into Gaza’s tunnels. At the same time, another front has opened in the United States – civil counterterrorism litigation against the enablers of the October 7 and subsequent attacks. My firm, Osen LLC, together with our co-counsel firms Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP and Stein Mitchell Beato & Missner LLP, have brought three such suits on behalf of hundreds of victims of the October 7 attacks. The aim of these suits is not just to hold supporters of terrorism accountable, but also to expose previously unknown support vectors for Hamas. The first suit, Shalom v. Masri,1 alleges that PalestinianAmerican billionaire Bashar Masri and the companies he controls were helping to build and conceal Hamas’s tunnel network beneath his Gazan properties. The suit is especially significant because it illustrates how any civic development in Gaza – in this case directed by a darling of Western elite circles and using American taxpayer money – can serve Hamas’s terrorist ends until it is ousted from the Strip. The second suit, Weiser v. Islamic Republic of Iran,2 contains allegations based on documents seized by the IDF in Gaza showing Hamas’s coordination with Iran on what Yahya Sinwar called the “Big Project.” And in November 2025, we filed the third suit, Balva v. Binance Holdings Ltd., against the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, which admitted in 2023 to servicing Hamas-linked “wallets” on its platform.3 With the support described in these cases, Hamas was not only able to launch an unprecedented attack on Israel but also carry on years of guerrilla warfare against the Jewish State while strategically immiserating Gazan civilians. That support allegedly enabled Hamas to build its vast tunnel network, dubbed the “Gaza metro,” which ran for hundreds of miles throughout the Strip and crossed into Israel. These were not hand-hewn tunnels – they were constructed primarily with reinforced concrete and powered by electricity; they included sleeping quarters, communications infrastructure, command centers, and even roads. As Daphné Richemond-Barak, an underground warfare expert, explained, “[a]ny discussion of Gaza’s future is woefully incomplete without addressing Hamas’s longtime underground, cross-border network of tunnels,” which “has enabled Hamas to sustain its longest-ever war with Israel.”4 Indeed, it is currently “the longest underground warfare campaign in history.”5ֿ The American Civil Counterterrorism Landscape American civil counterterrorism litigation aims to hold those who support terrorist organizations accountable to the victims of those organizations’ attacks. These suits tend to focus on secondary actors because, as Judge Richard Posner explained, “[d]amages are a less effective remedy against terrorists and their organizations than against their financial angels,” as suing and enforcing judgments against terrorists themselves is “well-nigh impossible.”6 Counterterrorism lawsuits in the U.S. are generally brought under one of two federal statutes: the AntiTerrorism Act (“ATA”)7 and the Terrorism Exception to the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (“FSIA”).8 Both statutes were designed to deter supporting terrorism. Congress intended the ATA, which imposes treble October 7 Civil Litigation in American Courts Michael Radine 1. Shalom v. Masri, No. 25-cv-01024 (S.D. Fla. Aug. 26, 2025), available at https://dockets.justia.com/docket/ florida/flsdce/1:2025cv23837/696019 2. Weiser v. Islamic Republic of Iran, No. 24-cv-03244 (D.D.C. Nov. 17, 2024), available at https://dockets.justia.com/ docket/district-of-columbia/dcdce/1:2024cv03244/274948 3. No. 25-cv-00266 (D.N.D., Nov. 24, 2025), available at https://dockets.justia.com/docket/north-dakota/ nddce/3:2025cv00266/70568 4. Daphné Richemond-Barak, “Earth, Sun, and Water: The Elements that Fuel Hamas’s Tunnels,” SMALL WARS JOURNAL (July 3, 2025), available at https:// smallwarsjournal.com/2025/07/03/earth-sun-and-waterthe-elements-that-fuel-hamass-tunnels/ 5. Id. 6. Boim v. Holy Land Foundation for Relief & Dev., 549 F.3d 685, 690-91 (7th Cir. 2008) (en banc). 7. 18 U.S.C. § 2333. 8. 28 U.S.C. § 1605A. T
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