Police foil Hamas plot to attack Jews across Europe

Western intelligence agencies have previously warned that the war in Israel has increased the risk of attacks on Jews in Europe.

“Historically, Hamas has never shown interest in carrying out terrorist attacks outside of Israel,” said Community Security Trust (CST), the UK body that provides security advice and protection to synagogues, Jewish schools and other Jewish sites.

“There have been one or two plots over the years linked to them but nothing on a significant scale.”

“But if this is a shift in policy for Hamas to carry out attacks on Jewish communities outside the region, in line with Iran and Hezbollah, that would be extremely concerning. It represents a significant shift in the threat posed to Jewish communities. There is a big concern if Hamas HQ is ordering Hamas people in Europe to carry out an attack.”

Three of the suspects arrested in Berlin are citizens of Egypt and Lebanon, according to German prosecutors. The three suspects arrested in Denmark are to be charged with terror offences, according to Danish police chief inspector Flemming Drejer.

Europe has been on high alert for Hamas-linked attacks since the terror group launched the October 7 massacre. The arrested suspects appear to have additional links with criminal gangs in Europe, according to Danish police.

Security patrols around Jewish sites in Denmark are being stepped up in response to the foiled plot as well as police patrols in Copenhagen.

The three men arrested in Berlin, and another held in the Netherlands, were preparing a weapons cache that would be “kept in a state of readiness in view of potential terrorist attacks against Jewish institutions in Europe”, they said.

Bild, the German tabloid, named the suspects held in Berlin, whom they said have “close ties to senior leaders of Hamas’ military wing”.

No later than early 2023, Hamas leaders in Lebanon had tasked one of the suspects with locating a “depot with weapons in Europe, which the organisation had covertly set up there in the past”, prosecutors said.

“The protection of Jews is our top priority,” Nancy Faeser, Germany’s interior minister, said on Thursday night.

Five apartments and a restaurant in Berlin were searched by police as part of the investigation. German prosecutors said that the investigation into the three suspects arrested there had been launched several months before the October 7 Hamas massacre.

The three suspects arrested in Denmark are due to appear at a closed court session on Friday.

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said the plotters were trying to expand the Hamas-Israel conflict into Europe.

“This is extremely serious,” Ms Frederiksen said from Brussels where she was attending a European Union summit.

“It is of course completely unacceptable in relation to Israel and Gaza, that there is someone who takes a conflict somewhere else in the world into Danish society,” she added.

The Israeli prime minister’s office suggested that Mossad, Israel’s foreign intelligence agency, played a role in alerting the authorities, as well as Shin Bet, its domestic security service.

“The Hamas terrorist organisation has been working relentlessly and exhaustively to expand its lethal operations to Europe, and constitutes a threat to the security of these countries,” it said.

In early December, an EU official warned that there was an increased risk of terrorist attacks over the northern winter holiday period, as potential fallout from the Israel-Hamas war.

“With the war between Israel and Hamas, and the polarisation it causes in our society, with the upcoming holiday season, there is a huge risk of terrorist attacks in the European Union,” said Ylva Johansson, the EU home affairs commissioner.

The Telegraph London