Germany bans Hamas activities in wake of Oct. 7 massacre

(JNS) — Germany on Thursday announced a complete ban on Hamas activities in the country.

Already designated a terror organization in the Germany, Berlin moved to ban its activities following the Oct. 7 massacre of 1,400 Israelis.

“With Hamas, I have today completely banned the activities of a terrorist organization whose aim is to destroy the State of Israel,” said German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser.

The German wing of Samidoun, a Palestinian organization with close ties with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine terror group, will also be disbanded.

Faeser said that Samidoun works under the guise of a solidarity group for Palestinian prisoners to spread antisemitic hate and anti-Israel propaganda.

“The holding of spontaneous ‘celebrations’ here in Germany in response to the terrible terrorist attacks of Hamas against Israel shows the antisemitic, inhuman worldview of Samidoun,” she said.

Samidoun’s German branch had previously organized a march in Berlin on April 8 where the mainly German Muslim participants chanted “Death to Jews” and “Death to Israel.”

In other action, legislation under consideration by the Bundestag seeks to block antisemites from gaining German citizenship, amid a sharp rise in antisemitic incidents in the country following Hamas’s Oct. 7 assault on Israel.

According to a statement released by Berlin’s Interior Ministry on Oct. 23: “The Citizenship Act should make it clear that antisemitic, racist, xenophobic or other inhumanely motivated actions are incompatible with the human dignity guarantee of the Basic Law and violate the free democratic basic order. Such actions therefore exclude naturalization. Of course, this also includes anti-Israel antisemitism.”

The draft law comes amid a 240 percent increase in antisemitic incidents in Germany in the week following the Hamas terrorist group’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel, according to the watchdog organization RIAS Berlin.