Intelligence source says 45 Israeli embassies targeted since Hamas Oct. 7 massacre

Speaking on condition of anonymity, a senior Middle Eastern security source revealed on Tuesday that 45 Israeli embassies have been targeted around the world since the Hamas Oct. 7 invasion and mass terror attack in 2023.

Addressing the Middle East U.S. Summit (MEAD) in Washington, D.C., the source stated, “The last time we saw anything like this was in 1982,” referring to Israel’s decision to launch a military ground operation in Lebanon in response to the PLO’s persistent terrorist attacks on northern Israeli civilian border communities.

The annual summit in the U.S. capital attracts security experts and their counterparts from across the Middle East every September for off-the-record discussions about regional issues.

Attacks on Israeli embassies have taken place across multiple continents, and according to the security source, Israel regards any assault on its embassies or diplomats as a direct attack on Israel itself.

In October 2023, the same month that Hamas committed the massacre of 1,200 Israelis and kidnapped 251 people from Israel, an Israeli embassy employee was stabbed by a foreign individual at the Israeli embassy in China. Chinese authorities arrested the suspect.

Last month, German authorities arrested an Islamist Russian citizen who reportedly planned to attack the Israeli embassy in Berlin.

"From the beginning of February, he planned to carry out an attack in Germany, for example, on the Israeli embassy in Berlin," the German prosecutors stated.

In May, British authorities arrested five suspects – four of them Iranian nationals – on suspicion of committing “terrorism offenses,” including an attack on the Israeli embassy in London.

In October 2024, three suspects with Swedish citizenship were arrested after hand grenades detonated close to the Israeli embassy in the Danish capital Copenhagen.

In June 2024, a terrorist shot a policeman outside the Israeli embassy in the Serbian capital, Belgrade.

In January 2024, Swedish police neutralized a live device that was discovered outside the Israeli embassy in Stockholm. The incident was investigated as a terrorist crime against a diplomatic institution. Furthermore, CNN reported in April that the Iranian regime employs criminal networks in Sweden to carry out attacks against Israeli and Jewish targets.

Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson accused Tehran of outsourcing its terrorism to local criminal gangs.

"Iran is using organized and violent criminal gangs to carry out serious attacks within Sweden,” Kristersson stated. He described the Iranian aggression as “hybrid attacks.”

"But we and our neighbors are exposed to hybrid attacks, carried out not with robots and soldiers, but with computers, money, disinformation and the risk of sabotage," he said.

A European report revealed in October 2024 that Iran used criminal networks in Sweden and other European countries to target Israelis, Jews, and dissident Iranian expats.

Dutch authorities arrested a terrorist suspect in March 2024 after the individual threw a burning object at the Israeli embassy in The Hague. Last month, anti-Israel activists splashed red paint and destroyed the embassy’s door.

There have also been attacks – or attempted attacks – against Israeli embassies in Mexico City and the Romanian capital, Bucharest.

One of the most devastating attacks to date took place in May, when an anti-Israel activist murdered the Israeli embassy employee Yaron Lischinsky and his soon-to-be fiancée, Sarah Milgrim, outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C.