Israeli professor charged with planning mass terror attack

Prosecutors say he scouted locations, wrote documents laying out his methods and justifications, and tried to recruit participants.

By Gila Isaacson, JFeed

Prosecutors indicted a Bar-Ilan University mathematics lecturer Monday at the Lod District Court.

He is accused of planning simultaneous terror attacks meant to kill hundreds of Arab Israeli citizens, including Bedouins, along with Arabs in eastern Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria.

The defendant is a man in his 60s from Petach Tikva.

The Central District Prosecutor’s Office charged him with preparing to commit an act of terror under the Counter-Terrorism Law, extortion by threats, and obstruction of justice.

Prosecutors Roi Reiss and Tomer Steinberg filed the indictment and asked the court to keep him in custody until the proceedings end.

The defendant called his plan “AYT,” Hebrew initials for “the nation will do transfer.”

According to the indictment, nationalist and ideological motives drove him, first after the Guardian of the Walls riots and then with greater intensity during the Swords of Iron war.

His goal was to force Arabs to flee permanently to Jordan, Lebanon, and the Gaza Strip.

He allegedly worked on the plan from early February 2023 until his arrest about two weeks ago.

Prosecutors say he scouted locations, wrote documents laying out his methods and justifications, and tried to recruit participants.

The plan called for 72 Jewish operatives, at least half of them licensed gun owners and himself among them.

They would form 12 cells of six and strike Arab towns and mixed cities at the same time with pistols, rifles, axes, and hammers.

He also expected backup from subversive elements inside the IDF, including bombing of Arab population centers by the Air Force, Artillery Corps, and Armored Corps.

His written instructions allegedly told participants to seize roads, village entrances, and hospitals, and to show no mercy to women and children.

He planned to spread the attacks on social media to speed the exodus.

He allegedly scouted the village of Tuba-Zangariyye as a central target. He spent about a year and a half trying to recruit partners and failed.

The defendant allegedly planned to recruit Moshe Feiglin, head of the Zehut party and a candidate in the upcoming Knesset elections.

Through Feiglin he hoped to bring in more activists, who would be marked in advance and summoned to a Zehut rally.

There they would be told they were joining an attack the next day.

He attended two Feiglin events and tried to schedule a meeting, but Feiglin never responded.

About a month ago, the indictment says, he wrote Feiglin an extortion letter. It threatened to publish criticism of him before the elections unless he cooperated.

He allegedly handed the letter to a neighbor of Feiglin’s to deliver.

Later, at a Zehut event in the Machane Yehuda market, he gave copies to the party’s director general with a similar threat.

Prosecutors say he took many steps to avoid capture.

He wrote everything by hand instead of on a computer, wore a mask, hat, and sunglasses to meetings, used a false name, and borrowed passersby’s phones.

Prosecutors called his ideology extremist and murderous.

They say he poses a clear and immediate danger to individuals, the public, and the state, and that the nationalist motive and the period of heightened security tension add to that danger.

Bar-Ilan University said it was shocked and condemned the alleged actions.

It urged authorities to pursue the full force of the law if the charges are proven and promised zero tolerance. The university suspended him immediately until the proceedings end.