The three men, along with another suspect arrested in the Netherlands, were said to have tried to gather weapons to be “kept in a state of readiness in view of potential terrorist attacks against Jewish institutions in Europe”, German federal prosecutors said in a statement.

Police arrested Egyptian citizen Mohamed B. and two Lebanese-born men, Abdelhamid Al A. and Ibrahim El-R. in Berlin.

In addition, the Dutch national Nazih R. was detained by local police in Rotterdam, the prosecutors said.

The four were suspected of being “longstanding members of Hamas”, the Palestinian militant group whose unprecedented October 7th attack on Israel triggered the war in Gaza.

The group were said to have been “closely linked” to the leadership of Hamas’s armed wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades.

No later than early 2023, Hamas leaders in Lebanon tasked Abdelhamid Al A. with locating a “depot with weapons in Europe, which the organisation had covertly set up there in the past,” prosecutors said.

“The weapons were due to be taken to Berlin and kept in a state of readiness in view of potential terrorist attacks against Jewish institutions in Europe,” they said.

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Abdelhamid Al A., Mohamed B. and Nazih R. “set out from Berlin several times to search for the weapons,” and were aided in their efforts by Ibrahim El-R.

“The protection of Jews is our top priority,” Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said in a statement.

“We will use all legal means against those who threaten the lives of Jews and the existence of the State of Israel,” Faeser said.

Germany has warned that the risk of Islamist attacks is higher than it has been for a long time since the outbreak of the war between Israel and Hamas.

Last month, Germany issued a ban on Hamas activities and organisations linked to the group in the wake of the militants’ attack.

Some 1,200 people, most of them civilians, were killed when Hamas stormed across the border from the Gaza Strip and took some 240 hostages, according to Israeli officials.

Israel subsequently launched a retaliatory military offensive in Gaza that has killed more than 18,700 people, mostly women and children, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry. 

Around 80 percent of the 2.2 million people in the territory have also been displaced.