Jerusalem, 11 March, 2026 (TPS-IL) — Iran pushed and encouraged Hamas to expand its operations into Europe, helping drive efforts to build terror infrastructure across the continent, according to a former senior Israeli Intelligence official, as new details emerge about the Arrest of an operative planning attacks in Germany and a previously undisclosed Hamas plot to target passenger planes in Denmark.
“Iran stood behind Hamas and pushed and encouraged it to operate in Europe,” Oded Ailam, former head of the Counterterrorism Division in the Mossad and currently a researcher at the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs, told The Press Service of Israel. “Today, there is almost no connection between Iran and Hamas, as both actors are now fighting for their own survival.”
The developments come as European authorities continue uncovering suspected Hamas operatives on the continent. Last Friday, Cypriot authorities arrested a suspected Hamas operative at Larnaca Airport under a European arrest warrant for allegedly helping organize the transfer of ammunition intended for attacks on Israeli or Jewish targets in Germany and other European countries.
An Israeli security source told TPS-IL that Hamas planned to target passenger planes using drones in Denmark in 2022, an attempt that experts say fits into a wider process of building operational networks across Europe, with Iranian backing.
According to this source, Danish authorities found some of the drones. He added that the case was not publicized to avoid panic. The Danish Secret Service did not respond to TPS-IL’s request for comment.
“The most extravagant thing Hamas wanted to do was to down passenger planes as they were landing in Copenhagen, using a swarm of drones. The main idea was to create several simultaneous attacks,” the source told TPS-IL.
Ailam and another expert formerly from IDF intelligence, who spoke exclusively to TPS-IL, warned that European governments should treat the recent cases as a sign of strategic change rather than isolated investigations.
Hamas terrorists at a Gaza rally on July 19, 2023. Photo by Majdi Fathi/TPS-IL
Arrests and Weapons Caches
A November 2025 report by the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center detailed a series of arrests in Europe tied to Hamas-linked activity, assessing that the group had built networks focused on operational readiness, including weapons storage, rather than solely fundraising and political activity. The report linked the trend to cases in Germany and Denmark in late 2023, identifying operatives connected to a wider Hamas infrastructure.
In a separate announcement that same month, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said the Mossad had uncovered a Hamas terrorist infrastructure “in the heart of Europe,” including weapons depots and logistical channels intended to enable attacks abroad if activated. Several Hamas operatives were arrested in Germany and Austria. Austrian authorities seized guns and explosives belonging to Muhammad Naim, whose father, Bassem Naim, is a member of the Hamas politburo living abroad.
The developments also unfold against the backdrop of increasingly radical rhetoric at some pro-Palestinian demonstrations in Europe, where chants of “Globalize the Intifada” are frequently heard. The slogan is a call to expand violence against Jews beyond Israel and the Palestinian territories.
“The entire story of Hamas’ operations in the West points to a huge dramatic development that started in recent years,” Dr. Michael Milshtein, Head of the Palestinian Studies Forum at the Moshe Dayan Center at Tel Aviv University and former head of the Palestinian department in Israeli military intelligence, told TPS-IL.
For over 30 years, Milshtein said, Hamas’ attitude was not to operate outside of historic “Palestine,” based on a longstanding directive of the group’s spiritual leader and founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin. But in recent years the group started operating terror cells in Europe, he added.
“I’d tell European countries to wake up. Hamas is investing and planning to invest much more effort in new arenas where the group wasn’t operating before. So the Germans, the Belgians, the French, and the Danes, I’d tell them to wake up,” Milshtein said, noting that the financial infrastructure is already available to the group through charity funds and Muslim Brotherhood organizations in Europe.
“When you look at everything that was exposed so far in Sweden, Germany, Denmark, and Austria, it is clearly disturbing,” he said.
European and American counterterrorism analysts have similarly warned that recent cases across the continent suggest a shift in Hamas’ posture from political and financial activity toward operational preparation.
Bibi van Ginkel, an Associate Fellow at the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism in The Hague, warned in a 2023 interview with Dutch media that the emergence of Hamas operational infrastructure in Europe would mark a strategic shift. “If there is indeed a network of Hamas here in Europe, and they have weapons depots, this is a game changer,” she said.
That assessment was echoed in a 2025 analysis by the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, which examined recent criminal cases in Germany and Denmark. “[These cases] reveal that Hamas set in motion contingency planning for possible attacks in Europe several years before the October 7 massacre, including stashing small arms in weapons caches in multiple European countries,” the report stated.
The authors concluded that the cases point to preparations that went beyond fundraising or political activity and reflected a shift toward external operational capability.
Palestinians in Gaza pass a billboard with the image of Hamas commander Saleh Arouri on Aug. 27, 2023. Photo by Majdi Fathi/TPS-IL
Iranian Push
Ailam told TPS-IL that Hamas’ drive to expand its activity abroad should be viewed as part of a broader strategic trajectory tied to Hamas’s regional operating environment.
According to Ailam, Hamas’ initiative to operate beyond Gaza, Israel, Lebanon and Syria was the personal project of senior Hamas leader Salah Arouri, who was killed by Israel in Beirut in 2024. Arouri, who was Hamas’ deputy political bureau chief, was the group’s main liaison to Iran and Hezbollah and a key architect of many terror operations. Arouri was the key figure in bringing Hamas into a tighter orbit with Tehran.
Ailam pointed to a meeting he said took place in February 2019 between Arouri and other senior Hamas officials, alongside Hezbollah and Iranian Quds Force officials in Lebanon.
“Iran pushed Hamas to adopt the doctrine of building worldwide infrastructure for attacks, saying it will put Hamas back at the top of the world’s agenda,” Ailam explained. “They offered a joint venture, in which Iran will help with funds, fake identities, training and ammunition.”
Ailam said the argument presented to Hamas, as he described it, included the idea that Hamas would be better positioned to operate within Palestinian-Sunni communities in the West. He said this was framed as a way to broaden reach and build capability beyond Hamas’ traditional theater of operations.
“It was a strategic change, in which Hamas was guided and inspired by Iran’s Quds Force and Hezbollah, but planned to do the execution by itself… not only against Jewish targets,” Ailam said, adding that the group sought to build operational capability patiently rather than through sporadic attacks, including by using local criminal networks.
As part of that approach, Ailam said Hamas operatives hid weapons in GPS-marked underground caches near motorways in multiple countries, including Bulgaria, Poland, Germany, Austria, Denmark and England.
In June 2023, Ailam said, as Hamas was preparing for the October 7 attack in Israel months later, operatives were sent to check the readiness of these caches.
“Had we known this at the time, we could have perhaps deduced that something big was going to happen in Israel as well,” he said. “But no one knew about it in real time.”
He said Israeli security bodies later found leads that helped disrupt what he described as a possible attack intended for October 8, 2023, in Europe.
Both Ailam and Milshtein said that the cases exposed so far across Europe should be treated as warning indicators.
“Hamas is now weak in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan, so attacks abroad are the way for the group to stay relevant,” Ailam said. “I have no doubt that when they feel the need, they will try to launch attacks abroad. The infrastructure is still there, only part of it was found so far and they can rebuild more,” he said.
“The West must keep a watchful eye.”
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