NEW YORK – A New Jersey man who planned to firebomb the home of a prominent Palestinian activist was arrested Thursday following a weekslong undercover operation led by the New York City Police Department, according to officials and court papers.
The target of the plot was Nerdeen Kiswani, an outspoken Palestinian activist who co-founded the group Within Our Lifetime and has frequently led protests against Israel and the war in Gaza.
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Kiswani, 31, said she received a call from a law enforcement official late Thursday informing her they had disrupted “a threat on my life that was about to take place."
Federal authorities said they had arrested Andrew Heifler, 26, as he was assembling Molotov cocktails to throw at Kiswani’s home. For weeks, he had discussed the plot with an undercover NYPD detective who had infiltrated a group chat used by Heifler, according to a police department spokesperson.
Kiswani was targeted for her pro-Palestinian views, the spokesperson added.
“I feel very blessed that they were able to thwart this, but it’s something that is a constant possibility for people who speak up on behalf of Palestine,” said Kiswani, who lives in Brooklyn with her infant son and husband. She said the plot would not deter her continued activism.
Heifler was charged in a criminal complaint Thursday with separate counts of making and possessing destructive devices, which each carry a maximum penalty of ten years in prison. An online court docket did not list a lawyer for him and inquiries to possible relatives were not returned. He was expected to make an initial appearance in New Jersey federal court on Friday afternoon.
According to the complaint, Heifler spoke on a video call in February with a group that included an undercover detective about his interest in training for “self-defense” and wanting space where he could throw Molotov cocktails.
The next day, the complaint said, Heifler met with the undercover detective in person and discussed wanting to vandalize Kiswani’s home. He said he had Kiswani’s address and spoke to the undercover detective about making Molotov cocktails and his plan to flee the country after the attack, the complaint said.
On March 4, Heifler and the undercover detective drove to Kiswani’s residence to “conduct surveillance” and discussed making a dozen Molotov cocktails to throw at her home and two cars parked outside, complaint said.
On Thursday, the undercover detective and Heifler met at Heifler’s Hoboken residence, where he had assembled components to make the Molotov cocktails, including a large bottle of Everclear, a highly flammable alcohol, the complaint said.
Law enforcement officers then executed a search warrant at the residence and recovered the eight Molotov cocktails, the complaint said.
The operation was carried out by the Racially and Ethnically Motivated Extremism unit within the NYPD’s counterterrorism bureau, a police spokesperson said.