Hamas terrorists were quietly building a sprawling European terror network for years — stockpiling guns, scouting targets, and even filming a martyrdom-style video — as they plotted a massacre on the continent to mirror the horrific October 7 attack on Israel, according to a bombshell investigation released last week.
The chilling scheme, uncovered through a joint probe by European intelligence agencies and reported by Swiss outlet Neue Zürcher Zeitung, spanned at least seven countries: Greece, Cyprus, Germany, Austria, Denmark, Poland, and Britain. The terror group eyed the second anniversary of its 2023 rampage, October 7, 2025, as a possible attack date, according to the report.
The plot first cracked open in early June, when a 37-year-old Egyptian man of Palestinian descent was busted on the Greek island of Crete. Cops raiding his apartment found bomb-making chemicals, and investigators say he’d been coordinating with two Cyprus-based Palestinians on a plan to blow up an Israeli cruise ship. The sting was fittingly code-named “Odin.”
But the real nerve center of the operation, authorities say, was Germany. Since last fall, federal prosecutors have ordered the arrest of nine suspected Hamas operatives across the country, accused of targeting Jewish and Israeli institutions. Investigators recovered a pre-recorded propaganda video claiming responsibility for attacks that never came to pass.
German officials say Hamas had turned the country into a weapons pipeline, smuggling at least 13 handguns, an assault rifle and more than 900 rounds of ammo through Denmark, Berlin, and Vienna. It wasn’t the first bust, as four Hamas members were already convicted in Berlin earlier this year for stashing weapons caches across Europe.
The network’s roots go back even further. Federal investigators say a Hamas cell was ordered from Lebanon back in 2019 to start hiding weapons across Europe, with caches later dug up in Bulgaria and Denmark. More were feared buried along the German-Polish border. Suspects were finally caught after guards noticed them repeatedly crossing that border toting shovels, apparently hunting for their own buried arsenal. Arrests came in December 2023.
By the spring of 2023, prosecutors say, the same cell was ordered to haul the weapons into Germany and prep strikes on Jewish, Israeli, or American sites. Those sites included the Israeli embassy in Berlin, the U.S. airbase in Ramstein, and Berlin’s Tempelhofer Feld park.
Investigators say the whole operation was run out of Lebanon, with Berlin cell members spotted at the funeral of slain Hamas military commander Khalil al-Kharaz.
Hamas has denied any role in the alleged plot, insisting its fight is limited to Israel. But terror expert Hans-Jakob Schindler called that claim hard to swallow, warning a weakened Hamas may increasingly look to strike outside the Middle East for maximum shock value.