On October 1st 2025 the BBC News website published a report by Alys Davies headlined “Germany arrests suspected Hamas members over alleged attack plot”.
The most notable aspect of that article is its uncritical promotion of Hamas denials.
“Three suspected members of the Palestinian armed group Hamas have been arrested for allegedly planning attacks on Israeli and Jewish institutions in Germany, prosecutors say. […]
Hamas – which controls Gaza and is considered a terrorist organisation by the EU – denied any connection to the men. […]
Hamas said in a statement that the allegations against it were “baseless” and aimed to “undermine the German people’s sympathy for the Palestinian people”.
The group added that it had a policy of limiting its activities to what it considers Palestinian territory.”
However, the next and final sentence – together with the linked report from December 2023 which appears at the bottom of Davies’ article – indicates that the BBC should know that those Hamas denials cannot be taken at face value:
“The arrests come after four Hamas members went on trial in Berlin in February, accused of plotting attacks on Jewish sites in Europe.”
As that December 2023 BBC report states, in addition to those in Germany, arrests were also made at the same time in Denmark and the Netherlands. The following month, the Jerusalem Post reported that:
“Hamas has been working with criminal elements to procure drones for planned attacks across Europe and the Middle East, as ordered by the senior Hamas leadership.
In December, the security services and police in Denmark and Germany announced the arrest of an extensive network of Hamas operatives in Europe, those arrested have since had legal proceedings opened against them.”
In November 2024 the ITIC reported on the charges filed against the four men now described by Davies as being “on trial in Berlin”.
“According to the charges filed against the four on November 8, 2024, they had worked for Hamas abroad for years, held senior positions within the movement and had direct connections with senior operatives in Hamas’ military wing. According to the prosecution, they operated underground Hamas weapons depots across Europe for carrying out attacks, with targets including the Israeli embassy in Berlin, the United States Air Force base in Ramstein and an area near Tempelhof Airport in Berlin. According to the charges, one of the defendants established a weapons depot in Bulgaria in the spring of 2019 and inspected it again in August 2023, and between June and December 2023, the four attempted to locate a site for a weapons depot in Poland.”
In his recent report on Hamas Plots in Europe, Matthew Levitt notes that:
“German security officials say that the most recent arrests in early October, on the eve of the Yom Kippur holiday, underscore the extent to which “recruiting experienced criminals is part of Hamas’ new strategy.” In this case, suspected arms smugglers tied to “Turkish-Lebanese organized crime” were found to be acting on behalf of Hamas under the direction of Hamas “foreign operatives,” who function as liaisons between Hamas leadership in Lebanon and criminal networks in Europe. Both the drone plot in Denmark and the arm cache plot that spanned several countries including Germany, Bulgaria, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Poland involved transnational organized criminal groups as well, especially members of Loyal to Familia (LtF). Several of these LtF criminals were reportedly working out of Lebanon, where they were able to connect with Hamas leaders.”
And:
“In the final assessment, German Federal Intelligence (BND) determined “that Hamas has deliberately established local operators in Europe over the course of many years,” citing intercepted communications between the suspects discussing the placement of Hamas operatives in Germany and Italy years earlier “for strategic purposes.” And, it appears, at least before the October 7 attacks, that Hamas had plans for much more. According to documents Israeli forces seized from Hamas files in Gaza, Hamas planned to replicate its operational base in Lebanon with another in Turkey. In fact, the plan was much bolder still: One document lays out a three-year plan with the goal of “setting up many military cells and safe houses in many countries,” which could then plan acts of “sabotage and assassination” of a range of targets to include “influential Israelis.” […]
Hamas’ early external operational activities were carried out as contingency planning, but Hamas then sent operatives to put these plans into action before the October 7 attacks. Since then, a string of Hamas plots has been thwarted, only some of which have been made public. Today, European and Israeli officials fear that Hamas has taken the decision to go global and carry out plots abroad, marking a significant departure from the group’s prior modus operandi.”
In other words, had Alys Davies and her editors wished to actually inform readers about the activities of Hamas in Europe – and possibly the UK – rather than to merely uncritically promote that proscribed terrorist organisation’s denials, they could have found ample information in the public domain which would have better helped BBC audiences understand this story fully.
BBC is part of the propaganda arm of Iran and hence Hamas.
Little is mentioned of the other Iranian proxy Houthis of Yemen – one wonders why – is it that Bowen would be in unchartered territory?