The New York Police Department and federal authorities disrupted what officials described as a plot by a member of a pro-Israel terrorist organization to assassinate the leader of one of New York’s most active pro-Palestinian protest groups, according to officials and court papers.
Members of the F.B.I. and the Police Department’s Joint Terrorism Task Force notified the activist, Nerdeen Kiswani, and her lawyer late Thursday that an arrest had been made in connection with an imminent attempt on her life, her lawyer and law enforcement officials said. A New Jersey man, Alexander Heifler, 26, was taken into custody after detectives and federal agents searched his Hoboken home and found eight Molotov cocktails.
A police official said Friday that Mr. Heifler was a member of a branch of the Jewish Defense League, a pro-Israel group designated by the F.B.I. as a terrorist organization.
Mr. Heifler was charged Friday morning in a two-count criminal complaint with making and possessing the devices and appeared in federal court in Newark on Friday afternoon. The complaint did not specify a motive for the planned attack, which was laid out in detail. If convicted, Mr. Heifler could face up to 20 years in prison.
The complaint said the plan had been in the works since at least February, when Mr. Heifler discussed building and using Molotov cocktails for what he described as “self-defense” on a group video call that included an undercover detective.
Prosecutors said in the complaint that Mr. Heifler and the undercover detective met in person the next day and then twice more in the weeks that followed, including on Thursday, when they built the eight Molotov cocktails together in Mr. Heifler’s home. He was arrested shortly thereafter.
Mr. Heifler planned to use the devices to target Ms. Kiswani, 31, the co-founder of the pro-Palestinian group Within Our Lifetime, prosecutors said.
He was ordered held without bail on Friday after a brief court appearance in which he told the magistrate judge, Stacey D. Adams, that he understood the charges.
He did not appear to have any family members or friends with him in court and was represented by a federal public defender. He swayed and fidgeted nervously in his chair, wearing a gray sweatshirt and a black yarmulke that slipped occasionally off his head.
The complaint said that “components to make the Molotov cocktails” had been found at Mr. Heifler’s apartment, including a large bottle of Everclear, a liquor with a high alcohol content.
While making the weapons, Mr. Heifler told the undercover detective that he planned to throw some of them at cars and at least one directly into Ms. Kiswani’s home.
Soon after the weapons were made, law enforcement officers executed a federal search warrant of Mr. Heifler’s home, which is on a narrow cobblestone street in Hoboken and which he shares with several roommates.
The complaint said Mr. Heifler had originally planned to flee the United States two days after the intended attack, but he told the undercover detective that his travel plans had been pushed to the middle of May.
Mr. Heifler attended high school near Princeton, N.J., and studied computer science at Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, graduating in 2022. He was working as a machine learning engineer, according to his LinkedIn profile.
In court, the judge noted that his income was likely too high for him to continue to take advantage of a court-appointed lawyer.
A Police Department official said the investigation began in January, when the undercover detective, who is part of the department’s Intelligence Division, first infiltrated a group chat of people in the New York and New Jersey area.
The New York police commissioner, Jessica Tisch, issued a statement crediting the work of the undercover detective, first online and then in person, in exposing and thwarting the attack.
“This is exactly how our intelligence and counterterrorism operation is designed to work — a sophisticated apparatus built to detect danger early and prevent violence before it reaches our streets,” she said. The commissioner did not identify the detective.
Gov. Kathy Hochul also praised the police, saying on social media that she was “grateful to law enforcement for swiftly disrupting this abhorrent plot.”
She added: “No one should be targeted or live in fear of violence for expressing their beliefs.”
The group co-founded by Ms. Kiswani has organized countless protests to draw attention to the suffering of Palestinians during Israel’s war in Gaza.
The organization has become known in New York for its at times inflammatory rhetoric and disruptive tactics, including a demonstration that led the Police Department to shut down Grand Central Terminal.
In a statement to The New York Times, Ms. Kiswani said F.B.I. agents had told her on Thursday night that “a plot against my life was ‘about to’ take place.”
She added: “I will have more to say as additional details come to light. I will not stop speaking up for the people of Palestine. Thank you for your support.”
Robert Frazer, who was sworn in Monday as the U.S. attorney for New Jersey, said there was no threat to the public.
“We thank our law enforcement partners for this work in identifying and removing this potential threat,” Mr. Frazer, who was in court during Mr. Heifler’s appearance in Newark, said in a statement.
Ms. Kiswani has drawn the opprobrium of pro-Israel groups for saying she supports the liberation of the Palestinian people “by any means necessary,” including armed resistance. Protesters at events organized by her group sometimes wave the flags of Hamas and Hezbollah.
The group’s tactics and its use of certain slogans have led to accusations that it and its members are antisemitic. Ms. Kiswani has long denied those accusations, and argued that her activism opposes Israel, its policies and its structure as a Jewish state. A common chant at Within Our Lifetime protests is: “Judaism, yes, Zionism no! The state of Israel has got to go!”
But pro-Israel and many Jewish groups have rejected that argument, calling it a smoke screen and saying Zionism is intrinsic to the religious or ethnic identity of many American Jews.
Officially, Within Our Lifetime has a small membership that may not exceed a few dozen people. But since the war in Gaza began, its reach has grown significantly. Its protests often attract hundreds of people whose marches have closed bridges and stalled traffic in the city’s busy streets.
When Meta shut down the group’s Instagram account in February 2024, just five months after the start of the war, it had roughly 180,000 followers.
Ms. Kiswani’s activism has made her a reviled target for pro-Israel groups. In February, she filed a civil rights lawsuit against one of those groups, Betar U.S., which she said had used social media to put “bounties” on her head. The group had posted about her frequently in recent years.
She also said the group had harassed her in person with beepers, an apparent reference to an Israeli military attack on Lebanon that used exploding pagers to kill at least a dozen people and injure thousands more in 2024.
In January, New York’s attorney general, Letitia James, announced that Betar U.S. had agreed to stop what her office descried as “widespread persecution of Muslim, Arab, Palestinian and Jewish New Yorkers” who disagreed with its views on the Middle East.
She also said the group had agreed to dissolve its New York operations, which run its activities in the United States.
Neither the criminal complaint unsealed Friday charging Mr. Heifler nor the law enforcement officials who discussed the investigation suggested that Betar U.S. or its online activities were connected to the plot on Ms. Kiswani’s life.
But in her statement on Friday, Ms. Kiswani accused it of being one of several “Zionist organizations” that “have encouraged violence against my family and me.”
In an email to The Times, Daniel Levy, a spokesman for Betar U.S., denounced Ms. Kiswani as “a supporter of violent revolution and no innocent.” He said his organization was not connected to the plot against her life.
“We of course know nothing about this threat and have had zero contact with law enforcement on this issue,” he said, before adding: “That said, Palestinians are a violent people.”
Stephanie Saul and Mark Bonamo contributed reporting. Georgia Gee contributed research.
Liam Stack is a Times reporter who covers the culture and politics of the New York City region.
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