Germany Says Suspected Hamas Network Planned Oct. 7 Anniversary Attack
Nine suspects have been arrested in a cross-border weapons investigation that authorities say involved preparations for attacks on Jewish and Israeli targets in Europe
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German authorities say a suspected Hamas network was preparing a concrete attack in Europe around the second anniversary of the October 7, 2023 massacre in Israel.
A pre-produced claim-of-responsibility video announcing an attack around October 7, 2025, was recovered from one of the suspects. Federal Prosecutor General Jens Rommel revealed the discovery at his agency’s annual press conference in Karlsruhe, indicating that the alleged plot had advanced further than previously known. The first three suspects were arrested in Berlin on October 1, six days before the anniversary.
Since autumn 2025, German federal prosecutors have arranged the arrests of nine suspected Hamas supporters, including suspects detained in Germany, the United Kingdom, Cyprus and Denmark. Authorities allege that members of the network had been involved since at least the summer of 2025 in procuring, transporting and storing weapons for attacks on Israeli or Jewish institutions.
Weapons Moved Across Europe
Publicly disclosed allegations describe two major weapons routes involving at least 13 pistols, an automatic rifle and more than 900 rounds of ammunition.
German prosecutors allege that British citizen Mohammed A. met Abed Al G. twice in Berlin during the summer of 2025 and received five handguns and ammunition from him. Mohammed allegedly transported the weapons to Austria and stored them in Vienna. He was arrested in London on November 3, 2025, under a German warrant, according to the prosecutor’s office.
Austrian intelligence later announced that it had recovered a weapons cache in Vienna containing five pistols and ten magazines.
Danish citizen Yousif C. is accused of supplying five pistols and ammunition to Abed in July 2025. Danish police arrested him near Copenhagen in May 2026 under a European arrest warrant issued at the request of German prosecutors.
A second weapons shipment allegedly originated with Borhan El-K., whom prosecutors accuse of obtaining an automatic rifle, eight Glock pistols and more than 600 rounds of ammunition in Germany in August 2025. Mahmoud Z. allegedly collected the weapons in Hesse and transported them to Wael F. M. in Berlin, according to the federal allegations.
The weapons were recovered when Wael was arrested on October 1. The three men arrested that day were identified under German privacy rules as Abed Al G., Wael F. M. and Ahmad I.
Prosecutors accused them of membership in a foreign terrorist organization and involvement in preparations for a serious act of violence endangering the state. Authorities seized an AK-47 rifle, several pistols and a substantial quantity of ammunition.
The investigation has included arrests near Copenhagen, at Berlin Brandenburg Airport, at Larnaca Airport in Cyprus, in London, on a train near Flensburg and along a German highway after a suspect entered from the Czech Republic. Vienna was the location of a weapons cache, not a publicly reported arrest in the case.
Earlier Case Exposed Hamas Weapons Caches
The current investigation follows a separate German prosecution that documented Hamas weapons caches established in Europe years before October 7, 2023.
On March 25, 2026, Berlin’s Court of Appeal convicted four men of membership in Hamas as foreign operatives and sentenced them to prison terms of between four-and-a-half and six years.
The defendants were identified as Abdelhamid Al A., Mohamed B., Ibrahim El-R. and Nazih R. The judgment was not yet final when the court announced it.
The court found that the men had received instructions from a senior Hamas contact in Lebanon to locate, inspect and maintain underground weapons caches in Bulgaria, Denmark and Poland. It concluded that Hamas had established the caches so weapons would be available for possible future attacks on Israeli or Jewish institutions in Europe.
Weapons Buried Near Plovdiv
In April 2019, Ibrahim El-R. received orders from figures in Hamas’s Qassam Brigades in Lebanon to establish a weapons depot near Plovdiv, Bulgaria, according to German court material reviewed by the Combating Terrorism Center.
He subsequently traveled to Bulgaria and buried a collection of firearms and ammunition in a roadside cache.
Bulgarian police recovered the cache in December 2023. A suitcase buried near the road between Plovdiv and Asenovgrad contained a Kalashnikov rifle, a Makarov pistol, three Tokarev pistols, a silencer and ammunition.
Germany’s Federal Public Prosecutor confirmed that Bulgarian authorities secured the weapons near Plovdiv, according to an iMEdD investigation.
Citing a source familiar with the case, iMEdD reported that German and Bulgarian investigators located the cache after examining photographs and other evidence recovered from Ibrahim’s phone. GPS information from a rental car he used in Bulgaria reportedly helped investigators trace his movements and identify the burial site.
Activity Intensified Before October 7
The earlier network renewed its efforts to locate weapons in the months before the October 7 attack in Israel.
According to court records reviewed by the Combating Terrorism Center, Hamas operatives resumed activity involving the caches in May 2023. Beginning the following month, defendants made repeated trips to Poland while searching for a buried weapons depot.
Investigators also found mapping material marking the Israeli Embassy in Berlin, the United States’ Ramstein Air Base and the area surrounding Berlin’s former Tempelhof Airport.
Those locations were investigated as possible targets, but the Berlin court ultimately found that a concrete plan to attack them had not been established. An Associated Press account of the trial similarly noted that prosecutors had presented evidence of potential targets without establishing a finalized attack plan.
The court nevertheless concluded that Hamas had conducted operational activity in Europe to ensure weapons would be available if its leadership decided to carry out attacks against Israeli or Jewish sites.
Direction From Lebanon
The earlier cache operation was linked to senior Hamas figures based in Lebanon.
Khalil al-Kharraz, then deputy commander of the Qassam Brigades in Lebanon, allegedly supervised efforts to locate and maintain the caches. Members of the network remained in contact with him and reportedly provided updates and photographs documenting their searches. Al-Kharraz was killed in an Israeli strike in Lebanon on November 21, 2023.
One defendant, Abdelhamid Al A., traveled to Lebanon following al-Kharraz’s death and attended his funeral at the Rashidiya refugee camp. Court material reviewed by the West Point center described him as serving as a pallbearer at the funeral.
He later maintained contact with al-Kharraz’s son and provided updates on the weapons search. The available court reporting supports the presence of that defendant at the funeral, but not the broader claim that several members of the Berlin cell appeared among the mourners.
The Lebanon-based structure also included Saleh al-Arouri, who served as deputy chairman of Hamas’s political bureau. Al-Arouri moved to Lebanon in 2017 and played a senior role in expanding Hamas’s political and military infrastructure there before he was killed in an Israeli strike in Beirut in January 2024.
Separate Investigation in Greece and Cyprus
A separate investigation in Greece and Cyprus has raised additional concerns about suspected Hamas-linked activity in Europe. Greek police arrested a 37-year-old Palestinian man on Crete in early June 2026 on suspicion of planning terrorist attacks and belonging to Hamas. Authorities said the suspect, an electrician who had lived on Crete for approximately a year, was also under investigation for traveling abroad to receive training.
Searches of residences in Crete and Athens recovered mobile phones, a laptop, external hard drives and bank cards, according to the Associated Press. Police said the suspect had placed an online order for chemical agents that could potentially be used to manufacture explosives. The substances had not yet been delivered when he was arrested.
Europe as a Potential Operational Area
The cases have intensified concern that Hamas may be placing greater emphasis on attacks outside Israel, the West Bank and Gaza. Rommel said European countries could no longer be viewed only as places where foreign terrorist organizations raise money or organize logistical support. Germany and other European states, he warned, were increasingly being considered as operational areas for possible attacks.
Hans-Jakob Schindler, senior director at the Counter Extremism Project, warned that Hamas’s weakened position in Gaza could increase the threat abroad by pushing the group toward high-profile attacks intended to demonstrate its continued relevance.
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