Hamas’s plans to destabilise Europe through terror as well

An ambitious scheme, orchestrated by transnational networks exploiting the vulnerabilities of the Old Continent to export terror. New investigations from Athens to Berlin reveal that Hamas intends to bring its war to Europe as well. At five o’clock in the morning, a Greek special forces unit arrested an Egyptian man of Palestinian origin in Agios Nikolaos, Crete, who was working as an electrician in a hotel. At the home of Motasem, as he has been identified, the police found chemicals, precision scales and specialist equipment for manufacturing bombs. The Greek authorities tracked Motasem down following a tip-off from the Cypriot police.

The Greek-Cypriot cell was planning an attack on an Israeli cruise ship that regularly docks in Greece and is the target of anti-Israeli protests. Greece offers terrorists a number of advantages. Larnaca Airport has a direct link to Beirut, where many Hamas leaders reside. It is also possible to enter Cyprus illegally from the northern part of the island occupied by the Turks. The findings of the German investigations reveal a level of organisation in Europe that experts had never previously attributed to the terrorist organisation. In recent months, Hamas members have been arrested in various locations across Europe. The trail always leads back to Germany.

The German Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office has had nine men arrested in Copenhagen, Berlin, London and Vienna. The German Federal Public Prosecutor, Jens Rommel, believes they were planning an attack on Jewish or Israeli facilities in Europe. A video claiming responsibility had already been prepared. The plans were so advanced that a date had already been set: the second anniversary of Hamas’s attack on Israel, 7 October 2025. In total, the network is said to have smuggled pistols, AK-47 assault rifles and over a thousand rounds of ammunition through Scandinavia, Germany and Austria. Members of the Berlin cell travelled to Lebanon to meet Khalil al-Kharraz, a senior commander of the al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, who was killed by the Israeli army. Kharraz’s funeral in Rashidiya, a Palestinian-populated suburb of Tyre, proved to be a goldmine for the security services. The cynical calculation might be this: whilst the world has now become accustomed to violence in the Middle East, an attack in a European metropolis or on a cruise ship in the Mediterranean would guarantee front-page headlines. Countries such as Germany or Austria, regarded as supporters of Israel, could come under political pressure as a result of acts of terrorism on their own territory. Hamas is ready to bring the conflict to European soil. And it enjoys the support of Iran.

Iranian actors, Iranian proxies and criminal networks linked to the Islamic Republic are connected to many of the 45 terrorist attacks recorded in twenty-one European Union member states over the past year, according to the European Terrorism Report (EU TE-SAT), published last week. Of the 45 terrorist attacks planned in ten member states, twenty-two were successful, resulting in six deaths. The authorities foiled twenty attacks and three failed. Stabbings are the most common form of terrorism, with fifteen attacks, followed by bombings, which were used in eleven cases. Seven attacks involved arson, five involved firearms, two were attacks on property and one was a vehicle-ramming attack. The authorities made more arrests for terrorism-related offences in 2025 (486) than in 2024 (449) and 2023 (426). We are in the long-term aftermath of the European 7 October.

Radical Islamism does not seek to ‘resist’ in Gaza, but to destabilise the West by exploiting its freedoms, borders and internal divisions. To ignore this qualitative leap is to set oneself up for a future of terror.