Summary
Hamas has spent years building a terror infrastructure in Europe—burying weapons, recruiting operatives with European passports, and partnering with criminal networks—to target Jews, Israeli sites, and Western symbols.
Weakened in Gaza and seeing Europe as ideologically and operationally vulnerable, it now views attacks abroad as a high-impact way to pressure Israel, especially with support from Iran and Hizbullah.
Israel must broaden its strategy with deeper European cooperation, disruption of funding/front groups and crime-terror links, stronger diaspora security, and clear deterrence against overseas attacks.
This article was originally published in Israel Hayom on November 26, 2025.
In June 2023, somewhere along a deserted roadside in Poland, four men were looking for something that was not supposed to be there. They dug, rechecked documents, photos, and GPS data that had come from Lebanon, and tried to locate weapons and ammunition that Hamas operatives had buried some time earlier. At that very same time, others were digging and trying to find hidden arms caches in Bulgaria, Germany, and Denmark. On the face of it, this looked like “just another logistical task;” in reality, it was an early warning sign of October 7 that was not deciphered in time, and it marked the launch of a new strategic move: a sophisticated shift outward from Gaza and Judea–Samaria toward building capabilities for attacks in Europe.
Why Europe?
The reason lies in something deeper that Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood recognized. They identified a vulnerability in Europe’s overall worldview in the realm of humanism. Europe has lagged behind instead of completing a real revolution in thinking and consciousness. Europeans replaced the fanatical religious dogmatism of the Middle Ages with a kind of enlightened subjectivism, in which truth is a matter of personal perception rather than facts.
Europeans project their own value system and rationality onto the fundamentalist Islam growing within their societies. In naivety mixed with stupidity, they do not understand the principle of patient endurance: “I will not get to see the global caliphate, but my grandchildren will.” As usual, we, the Jews and Israelis, pay and will continue to pay the price.
From A Power Deficit in Gaza to Searching for New Arenas
Two years of war have worn down Hamas’s capabilities in the Gaza Strip: damage to its command structure, destruction of infrastructure, and sustained military and political pressure. From the organization’s perspective, the equation has changed. It has become harder to achieve surprise inside the familiar border arena, so they are seeking other theaters and operating spaces where it is more difficult for Israel and Europe to respond quickly and forcefully.
This is where a dramatic decision, made already in 2019 in Lebanon, comes into play. It emerged from the school of thought of Hamas operative Salah al-Arouri, who was later killed by Israel. The decision was no longer to limit themselves to terror “within the conflict” in Israel, Judea and Samaria, and Gaza, but rather to develop an external arm aimed at Jewish communities, Israeli targets, and Western symbols, especially in Europe.
Investigations in Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands, and other countries, supported by high-quality intelligence provided by the Mossad, revealed a harsh picture. This was not a one-off improvisation, but a patiently built process:
- Light weapons were buried in Bulgaria, Poland, and other countries as early as 2019.
- Operatives received instructions from Lebanon to travel and search for these stockpiles months before, and after, October 7.
- Links were established with European criminal organizations (for example in Denmark) in order to purchase drones intended for attacking the Israeli embassy.
- Weapons were acquired and a “mixed front” of terror and organized crime was formed.
Hamas headquarters in Lebanon, and later in Turkey, became a hub: recruiting, coordinating, and activating cells across Europe. From a security standpoint this is no longer “assistance from abroad,” but a full-fledged foreign terror infrastructure—with funding, weapons, recruitment, local language skills, and European passports.
For many years Hamas threatened, but in practice avoided making global terror its signature. October 7 shattered several taboos, including this one. Now, according to Israeli and European security officials, the organization views attacks abroad as an additional lever of pressure on Israel. It uses the global wave of sympathy for Palestinians to recruit support, logistics, and funding, and understands that acting outside Israel brings far greater international resonance than any attack in Judea and Samaria.
At the same time, Iranian involvement and integration into a joint framework with Hizbullah increase the danger. Shared know-how, infrastructure, and operatives turn the Palestinian–Lebanese–Iranian model into a multi-headed problem.
What Israel Needs to Do
If Hamas is indeed gradually moving toward a global operational model, Israel cannot afford to remain stuck in an “Gaza first” concept alone.
A comprehensive adjustment of strategy is required, centered on deeper cooperation with Europe: real-time intelligence sharing about Hamas cells, money flows, and crime-terror links; and pursuit of operational agreements enabling faster arrests, investigations, and deportations of operatives.
Israel must hit the chain of money and legitimacy: locate NGOs and “charities,” as well as “legitimate” businesses that serve as cover for Hamas activity, and lead international efforts to shut them down. It must wage a focused battle of ideas: against incitement and recruitment in mosques in Europe, especially around Friday prayers; and a consciousness campaign on social networks to make governments and publics understand that the story is not only “aid to Gaza,” but the establishment of terror cells on European soil.
Proactive monitoring of organized crime sectors is also needed: adopt a model that views local crime groups as partners to terror, not merely a criminal problem. Advance legislation and enforcement accordingly, and connect criminal-intelligence units with counter-terror units in Israel and abroad.
Israel should strengthen protection for Jewish communities and Israeli targets overseas: frequent updates to security systems, training local teams, and sharing scenarios with communities; alongside awareness campaigns among diaspora Jews on how to identify suspicious behavior, where to report it, and how to act in emergencies.
Finally, Israel must rethink preventive treatment: not only military response in Gaza and Lebanon, but also clear messages that an attack on Israeli targets abroad will trigger direct harm to those who initiated, financed, and operated it, wherever they are, including in “immune” countries.
Ultimately, Israel faces an organization trying to prove to the world and to the Palestinian public that it is still capable of surprise. If Hamas manages to convince people it can strike abroad consistently, that could become a dangerous “success model.” From now on, the question is not only what will happen in Gaza, but how far Israel, together with Europe, will succeed in pushing back new centers of terror before they become an established fact.
