European police have foiled a major Hamas plot to attack Jewish sites across the continent, with seven suspected members of the terror group arrested in raids in Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands.
The Hamas operatives were told to bring a cache of weapons, buried at an undisclosed location in Europe, to Berlin to attack Jewish institutions, German prosecutors said.
Three men arrested in Berlin, and another in the Netherlands, were preparing a weapons cache that would be “kept in a state of readiness in view of potential terrorist attacks”, they said.
Danish authorities confirmed the arrest of three people on their soil, with prime minister Mette Frederiksen describing the plans as “as serious as it gets” and confirming a link to the war in Israel and Gaza.
The Israeli prime minister’s office released a statement hailing the arrest of the suspects “acting on behalf of Hamas.”
“The Hamas terrorist organisation has been working relentlessly and exhaustively to expand its lethal operations to Europe, and thereby constitute a threat to the domestic security of these countries,” the statement said.
The Hamas plot represents a new strategy for the group, which has never carried out terror attacks in Europe before.
British intelligence agencies have warned that the war in Gaza could inspire terror attacks across the continent.
German police arrested Egyptian citizen Mohamed B and two Lebanese-born men, Abdelhamid Al A and Ibrahim El-R in Berlin.
In addition, the Dutch national Nazih R was detained by local police in Rotterdam, the prosecutors said.
‘Protection of Jews is our top priority’
The four were suspected of being “longstanding members of Hamas”, the Palestinian militant group whose unprecedented October 7 attack on Israel triggered the war in Gaza.
The group were said to have been “closely linked” to the leadership of Hamas’s armed wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades.
No later than early 2023, Hamas leaders in Lebanon tasked Abdelhamid Al A with locating a “depot with weapons in Europe, which the organisation had covertly set up there in the past”, prosecutors said.
“The weapons were due to be taken to Berlin and kept in a state of readiness in view of potential terrorist attacks against Jewish institutions in Europe,” they said.
Abdelhamid Al A, Mohamed B and Nazih R “set out from Berlin several times to search for the weapons”, and were aided in their efforts by Ibrahim El-R.
On Thursday afternoon, anti-terror police were searching five apartments and a restaurant in Berlin, a local broadcaster reported, based on intelligence sources.
The investigation into the men, who are said to have been Hamas members for several years, started back in the summer several months before the October 7 attacks in Israel, Germany’s Bild newspaper reported.
“The protection of Jews is our top priority,” interior minister Nancy Faeser said in a statement.
In Denmark, Flemming Drejer, the head of the security and intelligence service, said police had a “special focus” on Jewish institutions without providing more detail.
Officials said the three men arrested in Denmark were related to “criminal gangs” and had “threads abroad”.
Police spokesman Jesse Brobbel said a 57-year-old Dutch man was arrested in Rotterdam based on a request from German authorities.
Emily Foster is a globe-trotting journalist based in the UK. Her articles offer readers a global perspective on international events, exploring complex geopolitical issues and providing a nuanced view of the world’s most pressing challenges.
