by Stefano Piazza
For a long time Germany seemed to be just a haven for Hamas. That changed after the attack on Israel. The federal prosecutor general has now indicted four men who apparently planned attacks.The four men, Abdel Hamid A and Ibrahim El-R, born in Lebanon, and two Egyptians, Mohamed B and Nazih R, both Dutch citizens, were arrested on Dec. 14 last year and are charged with “ Participation in a terrorist organization abroad.” Behind these charges would emerge concrete actions that prompted German security authorities to revise their perception of the terrorist organization Hamas. For a long time, police and the Office for the Protection of the Constitution considered it unlikely that Hamas could orchestrate attacks on German soil. Germany seemed to represent exclusively a place for Hamas to collect donations and gain support. however, this view has now changed.
Weapons were to be retrieved from specially prepared depots and then used to prepare for attacks. Potential targets included the Israeli embassy in Berlin, the U.S. air base in Ramstein, located in Rhineland-Palatinate, and the Tempelhofer Feld, also in Berlin. However, according to the Federal Prosecutor’s Office, these plans would still be at an early stage and are classified as Hamas activities, and not as independent preparations for attacks. The indictment filed by Federal Prosecutor General Jens Rommel, more than 100 pages long, aims to prove the terrorist activity of the four defendants. In the document, Rommel not only describes the years in which Hamas built its terrorist structures, but also accuses the four men of planning attacks in Germany. The four defendants, who are currently in prison, have not made any statements regarding the charges since their arrest in December 2023. however, testimonies from their environment and analyses conducted by investigators, including those on cell phones and observation of the defendants, confirm the suspicions: the men were engaged in the search for weapons depots belonging to Hamas in Poland and Bulgaria. The intention was to transport such weapons to Berlin. Investigators managed to locate a depot in Bulgaria and confiscated several firearms. However, neither the defendants nor investigators have located the alleged weapons depot in Poland. Federal prosecutors and the Federal Criminal Police Bureau suspect that another Hamas depot existed in Denmark until 2019. One of the four accused, Ibrahim El-R., is said to have searched, found and closed this depot. It is unclear where the weapons came from. A former girlfriend of El-R. However, she told the BKA ( the German intelligence service, of a trip to Denmark and also described where investigators suspect the weapons cache was located at the time.
The Federal Prosecutor’s Office draws its argument from cell phone data, tailing results, and social media profiles: all four men are prominent members of a Hamas fighting unit-one of them is even so prominent that he interrupted the ongoing search of the cache to be carrying the coffin of a leading Hamas member. According to research by SWR and ARD-
Germany’s mistakes
Germany, like other European countries, has always sought a delicate balance between fighting terrorism, integrating immigrants, and protecting human rights. For years, it has avoided designating Hamas and Hezbollah as terrorist organizations or banning their activities, allowing them to operate through charities and raise funds for terrorist purposes, sometimes even targeted against Germany itself, and that has been a tragic mistake given the proliferation of Salafist doctrine to the point that according to the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution it has information on more than 1,150 members of the scene who have traveled to Syria and Iraq since 2011 to support the so-called “Islamic State” or other terrorist groups. About 40 percent of those who left the country have returned to Germany. For about a quarter of those who left the country, there is evidence that they died in Syria or Iraq (Federal Ministry of Interior and Homeland 2023).
In 2020, the German government overcame the artificial distinction between the military and political wings of Hezbollah, classifying it entirely as a terrorist organization. A similar decision was made with regard to Hamas only in November 2023, despite the fact that the European Union had already designated the movement as a terrorist organization back in 2014.A report by the German Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), published in October 2024, pointed out that, in addition to the actions of individuals motivated by anti-Semitism, escalation in the Middle East poses a growing threat to Jewish and Israeli targets in Germany. This risk is attributed to operational preparations conducted by representatives of Iran, Hezbollah, Huthi and Islamic State.
Impressive numbers
In 2022, according to the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, the Islamist scene in Germany included 27,480 people. The previous year there were 28,290 people. This corresponds to a decrease in the potential number of people by 2.9 percent. Here Salafist efforts still have the greatest potential. According to the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, other large numerical organizations include the “Millî Görüş” movement, the “Turkish Muslim Brotherhood” and “Hizb ut-Tahrir” . The Salafist scene is the fastest growing Islamist movement in recent years. From an estimated 3,800 people in 2011, it has grown to 12,150 people in 2020. The numbers, however, should be viewed with caution. Experts point out that the figures initially published may have been significantly underestimated because authorities did not have enough information about the Salafist scene at the time. There has been a slight decline in recent years. According to the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, the Salafist scene numbered 11,000 people in 2022 (Federal Ministry of Interior and Homeland 2023). In addition to the Salafist scene, several other Islamic groups are active in Germany. In 2022, the following three groups were the most numerous: According to the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, the Millî Görüş movement and its related associations number about 10,000 people. Muslim Brotherhood (MB)/German Muslim Community e. V. (DMG) is attributed to 1,450 people and Hizb ut-Tahrir (HuT) to 750 people. The number of HuT members has increased slightly in recent years and this is bad news.