TEL AVIV – 1,250 Hamas and Hezbollah activists and members are operating in Germany among an estimated 10,000 Islamic extremists currently residing in the country, according to a new report released by German intelligence.
Citing the report released Tuesday by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution in Germany, the Jerusalem Post reported 300 Hamas operatives and 950 Hezbollah activists were on the intelligence agency’s radar as operating from within the country.
“The followers of Islamist-terrorist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah striving for the abolition of the Jewish State of Israel are focused on their regions of origin, which is where they commit most of their terrorist acts of violence,” the report stated.
Hezbollah, considered a terrorist organization by the U.S., Canada, the Arab League, and the Netherlands, has European cells that “are ready to be activated” in the event of clashes with Israel, Gerald Steinberg, professor of Political Studies at Bar-Ilan University, told the Post.
He also warned that “these organizations are actively raising funds in Europe and recruiting members.”
The European Union does not consider Hezbollah’s political wing a terror organization, only its military arm. As such, it operates as a legal entity in Europe and has been using the continent to plan and launch terror attacks against Israelis and Jews for years.
In 2012, Hezbollah terrorists blew up a bus full of Israeli tourists vacationing on the Bulgarian Black Sea, killing six people.
The EU included Hezbollah’s so-called military wing on its terrorism list in 2013, but Hezbollah’s political operation remains a legal organization in Europe. The U.S., Canada, the Arab League, and the Netherlands proscribed all of Hezbollah’s organizations as a single terrorist group.
According to the report, it is unclear why Germany is harboring members of Hamas – classified as a terror organization by the EU.
In 2008, German Chancellor Angela Merkel declared Israel’s security to be “non-negotiable.”
On Saturday, around 800 pro-Hezbollah activists and supporters of the Iranian regime marched in the annual Al-Quds Day march in Berlin. Marchers were banned from waving Hezbollah flags by the Berlin State Senate, because the group “propagates the destruction of an entire people and endorses war and violence,” the city’s Interior Minister Frank Henkel said.
Conceived by the founder of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, International Quds Day is celebrated annually and calls for the destruction of the Jewish state.
Yakov Hadas-Handelsman, Israel’s ambassador to Germany, called it a ”disgrace” that Germany has agreed to host the rally for the past two decades.
The report said that around 10,000 Islamic extremists are believed to be living in Germany. The number of radical Islamists is on the rise with the influx of refugees into the country.