A terror plot to kill Europeans in the name of Hamas has been thwarted after seven were arrested across the continent.
The suspects were arrested in Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands with four suspected of being “long-standing” members of the terror group.
German officials said terrorists were told to go to Berlin with weapons from a stash at an unknown location in Europe to attack Jewish institutions across the continent.
One man in the Netherlands and three in Germany were suspected of building a weapons stash to be “kept in a state of readiness in anticipation of potential terrorist attacks” according to the Telegraph.
The terror group’s leaders in Lebanon supposedly tasked the group to find a “depot with weapons in Europe, which the organisation had covertly set up there in the past” according to German prosecutors.
A Dutch national was arrested in Rotterdam, while an Egyptian citizen and two Lebanese-born men were detained in Berlin.
The four were said to be “longstanding members of Hamas” and “closely linked” to its armed wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades.
Danish authorities arrested three people on their soil, with the country’s prime minister describing plans as “as serious as it gets”.
Arrests were made during dawn raids across Denmark, with the trio said to be related to “criminal gangs” with “threads abroad”.
The authorities did not disclose the targets for the attacks.
Following the arrests, the Israeli prime minister’s office released a statement commending the work of European police.
It read: “The Hamas terrorist organisation has been working relentlessly and exhaustively to expand its lethal operations to Europe, and thereby constitute a threat to the domestic security of these countries.”
