German prosecutors have filed charges against four Hamas terrorist operatives suspected of preparing attacks on Jewish institutions in Europe, Berlin’s Federal Prosecutor’s Office announced on Monday.
Abdelhamid Al A., Mohamed B. and Ibrahim El-R. were arrested by German police on Dec. 14, 2023. The fourth suspect, Nazih R., a Dutch national, was apprehended the same day and extradited on Feb. 28.
According to German authorities, the four suspects “worked as foreign operators for Hamas for years. They held important positions within the organization with direct ties to senior officials in the military wing.”
The Arab men were tasked by Hamas to maintain weapons depots in multiple European countries and “keep them ready for possible attacks against Jewish institutions,” the prosecutors claimed.
In connection with the preparations for the terror attack on Oct. 7, 2023, the [Hamas] organization showed interest in making the deposited weapons available again,” the charges read. The terror group was said to have considered attacks on the Israeli embassy in Berlin, the German capital’s Tempelhof Airport and the United States’ Ramstein Air Base.
Ibrahim El-R. allegedly set up a weapons depot with ammunition and firearms, including a Kalashnikov, in Bulgaria in the spring of 2019. That summer, the terrorist suspect emptied a Hamas weapons stockpile in Denmark, bringing at least one firearm back to Germany. He was said to have traveled to Bulgaria again in August 2023 to inspect the depot.
Between June and December 2023, the four accused attempted to locate a lost Hamas weapons cache in Poland, but failed to find the stockpile.
German security service officials previously told local media that the four received direct orders from Hamas’s leadership in Lebanon. Two of the accused hailed from Lebanon, according to Monday’s charge sheet.
Der Spiegel reported that Berlin launched the investigation in response to a tip from Israeli intelligence. One of the suspects reportedly used a “refugee passport” issued to him by Italy to travel across Europe.
According to a report that the European Leadership Network released last month, Hamas has increased its fundraising efforts in Germany since last year’s attack, in which some 1,200 people were murdered.
Hamas-affiliated organizations operate relatively unscathed in Europe, despite European governments and the European Union designating Hamas a terrorist group, the ELNET report charged.
In November 2023, the German government announced a complete ban on Hamas activities in the country in the wake of the Oct. 7 massacre.
“With Hamas, I have today completely banned the activities of a terrorist organization whose aim is to destroy the State of Israel,” declared German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser at the time.
The German wing of Samidoun, a Palestinian organization with close ties with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine terror group, was also disbanded. Faeser said Samidoun worked under the guise of a solidarity group to spread antisemitic hate and anti-Israel propaganda.
