Unmasked: Hamas backer Ihab Al Azhari scores big business in Australia

A pro-Palestinian activist who once glorified martyrdom and hailed Hamas as ‘freedom fighters’, leads a company engaged in large government and private sector projects.

One of Melbourne’s most prominent pro-Palestinian activists, who once glorified martyrdom and hailed Hamas as “freedom fighters”, leads a thriving company in Australia that is engaged in large government and private-sector projects.

Ihab Al Azhari founded the Sit-Intifada campaign in November 2023 with the goal of sitting on the steps of the Victorian Parliament every day for 12 hours.

He has since been involved in mass demonstrations across the city – including the Land Forces protest, where scores of people were injured and arrested.

According to the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, Mr Al Azhari is the sole director and secretary of steel fabrication and distribution company Best Fab Pty Ltd.

It operates in Victoria, NSW and Queensland, and is involved with some of the country’s biggest construction companies.

Global business analytics firm Dun & Bradstreet estimates Best Fab’s sales revenue at $36m, based on analytics, not balance sheets. The company’s website highlights contracts with Scotch College in Melbourne, Box Hill Hospital and Victoria’s Big Build – which includes infrastructure projects aimed at improving roads, rail and public transport.

Mr Al Azhari was born in Jordan in a refugee camp known as Al-Wehdat. It was one of four refugee camps set up by UNRWA to accommodate Palestine refugees who left Mandatory Palestine following the 1948 Arab-Israeli war.

Almost daily, he holds the Palestinian flag and a banner calling for an end to the bloodshed in Gaza. But what started as an independent “sit-in” has turned into a radical movement for protests in Melbourne.

Last week, The Australian revealed Mr Al Azhari’s comments towards Victoria Police and the government at a Land Forces protest, where he told a line of officers blocking protesters from approaching the weapons expo that he wished they would suffer in the same way Gazans do.

The Land Forces demonstration has caused a rift between rally organisers who disagreed over some of the violent ways in which the rallies were conducted.

Mr Al Azhari declined to comment when approached by The Australian. Best Fab was also approached for comment and did not respond.

The company’s website lists more than a dozen large commercial and industrial projects they engaged in, including at prestigious schools and universities, museums and railway stations.

Mr Al Azhari appears to be the only shareholder of the company’s non-beneficiary shares, meaning they could be owned by a trust rather than a single entity.

Best Fab prides itself on delivering “excellence and client satisfaction” on each project. “Overall, when you work with our team for structural steel, you can be confident that you are getting the highest level of expertise, quality, and attention to detail,” its website states.

Best Fab Pty Ltd Headquarters in Melbourne. Picture: Mohammad Alfares

The company, listed as a small proprietary, does not have to prepare and lodge annual financial reports to ASIC. However, it was slated as one of the top 10 major steel fabricators in Victoria, according to the June industry report by the Australian Steel Institute, with a capacity to supply 2000-10,000 metric tonnes a year. It is understood up to 75 people are employed on sites across different projects.

A Freedom of Information document released by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and obtained by The Australian shows the company is an accredited active sponsor – one that receives priority when DFAT processes temporary skill visas, nominations and visa applications.

In February this year, Mr Al Azhari called Hamas terrorists freedom fighters and was filmed saying there would be repeated attacks on Israel, in a heated argument between him and a Jewish woman speaking on the conflict.

“The only woman and children being killed were on the 7th of October when Hamas came in to terrorise, mutilate and massacre people,” the woman known as Sharon told Mr Al Azhari.

He replied: “We’re going to do it more and more ... to terrorise you and get you out of my country, as soon as possible. Until I get my mum’s town back.

“The beginning was on the 7th of October, that’s the bloody beginning. You’re going to have plenty of 7 October (attacks) happening, plenty of it, and the next 7th October is going to be to kick your ass out.”

In another instance, Mr Al Azhari celebrated martyrdom in the name of Palestine during a street protest in Melbourne.

With police nearby, he said Palestinian families celebrated the martyrdom by bringing offerings to the mother. “It is great (when) every single martyr died, they go to their houses with a sweet,” he told the gathering. “And they chant to his mother ‘You are very lucky … I wish my mum (is) in your place’.

“How are they going to defeat us when we wish our mothers has (sic) the martyr in her house?”