German authorities said on Sunday that they have arrested a Libyan national with suspected ties to the extremist group Islamic State (IS) who was allegedly planning a firearms attack on the Israeli embassy in Berlin.

Police and other security forces detained the man on Saturday evening in Bernau, a town just outside the German capital, and searched his home there, the Federal Prosecutor’s Office said in a statement.

It said the suspect is a Libyan national whom officials identified only as Omar A.

“He intended to carry out a high-profile attack with firearms on the Israeli embassy in Berlin,” the statement said.

In his planning, the statement added, “the accused exchanged information with a member of IS in a messenger chat”.

Security forces also searched the home of another person who is considered a witness and not a suspect, the prosecutor office’s statement said.

Germany Extremism Arrest
The suspect was allegedly planning a firearms attack on the Israel embassy in Berlin (Jockel Finck/AP)

Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said German security authorities “struck in time to thwart possible plans to attack the Israeli embassy in Berlin”.

“This shows that protecting Jewish and Israeli institutions in our country is vital and of the utmost importance to us,” she added.

The suspect was expected to be taken before an investigating judge at the country’s highest court, the Federal Court of Justice in Karlsruhe, on Sunday, the prosecutor’s office said.

Israeli ambassador Ron Prosor thanked the German security authorities “for ensuring the security of our embassy”, German news agency dpa reported.

News of the case first came from the Bild newspaper, which reported that a heavily armed elite police unit stormed the suspect’s home in Bernau.

It said German authorities had acted after receiving a tip-off from an unspecified foreign intelligence agency.

“We are acting with the utmost vigilance and attention in view of the high threat posed by Islamist, antisemitic and anti-Israel violence,” Ms Faeser said.

Justice Minister Marco Buschmann also warned on Sunday of a “very serious” threat of Islamist terrorism in Germany.

“Israeli institutions are particularly often the target of terrorists,” he told dpa.

A sharp increase in antisemitic incidents has been recorded in Germany since the October 7 2023 attack on Israel by Hamas which triggered the ongoing wars in the Middle East.