Denmark and Germany on Thursday announced the arrests of several terror suspects, including alleged Hamas members, suspected of plotting to attack Jews and Jewish institutions in Europe over the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas.
The announcements were made separately, and it was unclear how the arrests were related and whether they were the result of coordinated actions or even possibly a continent-wide operation.
Danish police said three people had been arrested across Denmark, while a fourth was detained in the Netherlands on suspicion of plotting an “act of terrorism”.
Officials in Copenhagen gave no details beyond saying the arrests had “threads abroad” and were “linked to criminal gangs”, singling out the outlawed, predominantly immigrant gang Loyal to Familia, which has long been behind feuds, violence, robberies, extortion and drug sales in the Danish capital.
But Flemming Drejer, the operational head of Denmark’s Security and Intelligence Service, cryptically said the police had a “special focus” on Jewish institutions. He said Denmark would not change its terror threat level, which has been at “serious”, the second highest, since 2010.
“People abroad have been charged. … It is a serious situation,” Drejer told a news conference, adding that the arrests had been made “in cooperation with our foreign partners” and that those arrested were part of a “network”.
The suspects would face a detention hearing within 24 hours, he said, likely behind “double closed doors”, meaning he could not give details of the case.
“This is extremely serious,” Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said on Thursday from Brussels, where she was attending a European Union summit.
“It is of course completely unacceptable in relation to Israel and Gaza that there is someone who brings a conflict somewhere else in the world into Danish society,” she added.
In the Netherlands, police said a 57-year-old Dutch man had been arrested in the city of Rotterdam at the request of German authorities, spokesman Jesse Brobbel said. On Tuesday, the Dutch counter-terrorism agency raised the country’s threat level to its second-highest, saying the possibility of an attack in the country was now “substantial”.
In Germany, authorities said three suspected members of the Palestinian militant group Hamas were arrested on Thursday for allegedly planning attacks on Jewish institutions in Europe.
Two men were arrested in Berlin and one in the Dutch city of Rotterdam, while a fourth suspect was temporarily detained in Berlin, Germany’s federal prosecutor said. Authorities identified the men only by their first names and the first initial of their surnames, in line with German privacy rules.
The four were identified as Abdelhamid Al A., who was born in Lebanon; Mohamed B., an Egyptian national; Nazih R., a Dutch national; and Ibrahim El-R., who was born in Lebanon.
The authorities claimed that three of the men were “long-standing members of Hamas and have participated in Hamas operations abroad”. They said the suspects were “closely linked to the leadership of the military wing” of Hamas, which is listed as a terrorist organisation by the United States and the European Union.
German Justice Minister Marco Buschmann thanked the authorities for the arrests and said that “attacks on Jews and Jewish institutions have also increased in our country in recent weeks” due to the war between Israel and Hamas.
In Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office praised what it said were seven Hamas suspects arrested in Europe, but attributed the arrests to Danish police.
The prime minister’s office said Denmark had arrested seven operatives acting on behalf of Hamas and ‘foiled an attack aimed at killing innocent citizens on European soil’. Netanyahu’s office said Israel’s intelligence services “will continue to operate … in order to thwart Hamas’ intentions and eliminate its capabilities”.
The discrepancies between the Danish, German and Israeli statements could not immediately be resolved.
Earlier this month, the European Union’s home affairs commissioner, Ylva Johansson, warned that Europe faced a “huge risk of terrorist attacks” over the Christmas holidays because of the fallout from the fighting in Gaza.
Denmark’s foreign intelligence service, known as FE, said on Thursday in its annual assessment for 2023 that “the war between Israel and Hamas has once again shown that unresolved conflicts in Europe’s immediate neighbourhood can escalate rapidly and cause widespread regional instability”.
