The exposure of a clandestine Hamas logistical network in the heart of Europe has forced security agencies to confront the reality of Palestinian militant operations expanding beyond the borders of Israel and the Middle East. Between June and December 2023, a highly structured Hamas cell operating in Germany and the Netherlands made multiple attempts to retrieve military-grade weapons hidden in the forests of southwestern Poland near Jelenia Góra. This shift toward external operations is extensively explored in a Combating Terrorism Center at West Point study regarding Hamas's shifting tactical patterns. Under the command of senior leaders based in Lebanon, these efforts were designed to activate European assets to conduct high-profile terror attacks against Jewish, Israeli, and Western targets. This informational resource page details the timeline, command structures, and security significance of the uncovered caches, highlighting how Hamas sought to transform its European fundraising cells into active operational strike teams.
Historical Background of Hamas in Europe
Historically, European security agencies viewed the presence of Hamas on the continent as primarily a political, propaganda, and fundraising operation. For over two decades, the group established front organizations and charitable societies to funnel financial support back to its military and civilian networks in Gaza and the West Bank. However, investigations conducted by German, Danish, and Dutch authorities, with the critical assistance of Israeli intelligence, revealed a highly sophisticated, decades-long effort to prepare military infrastructure on European soil. In 2019, under the cover of these charitable activities, Hamas operatives successfully established secret weapons caches in Bulgaria and Denmark, and laid plans for additional depots in southwestern Poland.
The strategic oversight for these clandestine activities was managed by Hamas’s external military leadership based in Beirut, Lebanon. Specifically, the military portfolio for operations abroad was managed by the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, which sought to establish operational readiness in Europe for contingency scenarios. Operating under the leadership of Azzam al-Aqra and other senior figures, the external command established several sleeper cells composed of Lebanese-born operatives who had obtained residency or citizenship in various European nations. These operatives, historically known to domestic intelligence services as mere political activists, were quietly weaponized and given coordinates to locate buried arms caches as geopolitical tensions in the Middle East escalated.
The Command Role of Khalil al-Kharaz
At the center of Hamas's European campaign was Khalil Hamed al-Kharaz, also known as Abu Khaled, who served as the deputy commander of the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades in Lebanon. Al-Kharaz was tasked with the oversight and execution of Hamas's foreign military operations, directly managing the logistics of the European sleeper cells. He maintained constant, encrypted communications with the operatives in Germany, Finland, and the Netherlands, instructing them to locate and inspect the hidden depots. Under his direct orders, operatives were dispatched on hazardous cross-border search missions to retrieve weapons and transport them to central hubs like Berlin, where they were to be kept in a state of absolute readiness.
Al-Kharaz's direct command is illustrated by the real-time communications and orders he issued to operatives like Ibrahim el-Rassatmi and Nazih Rustom during their search missions. He utilized secure messaging platforms to transmit coordinates and demand photographic proof of the condition of buried weapons, expressing dissatisfaction when caches were reported as degraded or lost. His role in directing these operations came to an abrupt end on November 21, 2023, when he was eliminated in an Israeli airstrike near Tyre, Lebanon. Despite his elimination, the organizational structure he implemented continued to operate until the cell was dismantled by European police forces in December 2023.
Chronology of the Jelenia Góra Forest Searches
Between June and October 2023, the Hamas cell made four distinct, failed attempts to locate a buried weapons cache hidden in the dense forests of southwestern Poland, near the town of Jeleniów and the regional hub of Jelenia Góra. The first attempt occurred on June 26, 2023, when Dutch-Palestinian operative Nazih Rustom and an assistant drove from Berlin to Poland in a rented car, spending two fruitless days searching the woods near Jelenia Góra before returning to Germany to report their failure. The second attempt, on July 25, 2023, involved Finnish-based operative al-Mahmoud and Ibrahim el-Rassatmi, who searched the forest around Szklarska Poręba in Jelenia Góra county under the active, real-time telephonic direction of al-Kharaz in Beirut.
The third and most critical search occurred on October 4, 2023, just three days before the devastating October 7 invasion of Israel, when Rustom received new encrypted coordinates from Lebanon indicating the cache was located near a road junction in the Jeleniów region near the Czech border. Accompanied by Mohamed Bassiouny, the operatives drove through the night and conducted an exhaustive five-hour search in the forest, yet they once again failed to locate the buried cache and reported their failure to al-Kharaz. Remarkably, on October 7, 2023, while Hamas was launching its massacres in southern Israel, Bassiouny and Rustom crossed into Poland for a fourth and final attempt, desperately searching the forest as the Middle East descended into war.
Key Facts of the Clandestine Weapons Network
- The Polish weapons cache was buried near the forest-covered town of Jeleniów, located in Lower Silesia near Jelenia Góra and the Czech border, which represents Hamas's easternmost logistical attempt in Europe.
- Hamas operatives conducted four desperate, unsuccessful search operations in Poland between June and October 2023, utilizing encrypted coordinates sent directly from Hamas military command in Lebanon.
- The European sleeper cell was comprised of Lebanese-born Hamas members, including Ibrahim el-Rassatmi, Nazih Rustom, Mohamed Bassiouny, and Abdelhamid al-Ali, who operated under the cover of local fundraisers and restaurant owners.
Analysis of Hamas's Logistical Failures and Strategy
The failure of the Hamas cell to locate the buried weapons in Poland highlights a significant gap between the group's ambitious operational plans and its local tactical execution on the ground. According to the authoritative report compiled by the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, the cell's repeated inability to find the caches stems from Hamas's own poor record-keeping and loss of precise geographical coordinates over time. This logistical breakdown prevented what could have been a coordinated wave of terror attacks across Europe, targeting the Israeli embassy in Berlin, the U.S. military base at Ramstein, and Jewish community centers. Despite their failure, the sheer persistence of the cell—conducting a search in the Polish woods on the very morning of October 7, 2023—proves that Hamas's leadership viewed these European weapons as vital assets for a globalized campaign against Jewish targets.
This tactical shift signals a departure from Hamas's traditional propaganda that its struggle is strictly limited to the geographic boundaries of Israel and Palestine. The landmark trial in Germany, which concluded on March 25, 2026, saw a Berlin court sentence these four operatives to prison terms ranging from four to six years, as detailed by a Deutsche Welle analysis of the landmark verdict. Security analysts warn that Hamas's willingness to collaborate with European organized crime syndicates, such as the outlawed Loyal To Familia gang in Denmark, represents a highly dangerous evolution in their operational model. This hybrid network of ideological extremists and local criminal syndicates allows Hamas to bypass traditional border controls, procure advanced hardware like unmanned aerial vehicles, and maintain operational security in the West.
Conclusion and Security Significance for Israel
The dismantling of the Hamas weapons network in Poland and Germany represents a critical victory for European counterterrorism agencies and Israeli intelligence, but it also underscores a growing threat to Jewish and Israeli institutions worldwide. The discovery of these caches serves as an undeniable warning that Hamas is actively preparing for long-term, globalized operations, shifting its focus toward external terror campaigns to offset its military losses in the Gaza Strip. For the State of Israel, these developments necessitate an immediate and permanent upgrade in the security of its diplomatic facilities, as well as closer operational coordination with European intelligence services like Germany's Federal Prosecutor's Office. Upholding democratic values and the rule of law in the West requires a zero-tolerance approach toward Hamas front organizations, ensuring that charitable covers are systematically exposed and prosecuted to prevent future terror plots on European soil.