Kiswani, 31, was told late Thursday that law enforcement had disrupted “a threat on my life that was about to take place,” she said, after officials moved to arrest a man they described as planning to attack her home. Federal authorities said they took Alexander Heifler into custody on Thursday in Hoboken as he was assembling Molotov cocktails that he planned to throw at Kiswani’s residence in New York.
The investigation began with a weekslong undercover operation led by the New York City Police Department, according to officials briefed on the case. Officials said Heifler discussed the plot with an undercover NYPD detective who had infiltrated a group chat used by Heifler, and that the target was Kiswani, who frequently organizes protests in New York against Israel and the war in Gaza through her organization Within Our Lifetime.
Authorities said Heifler identified himself to the undercover detective as a member of the JDL 613 Brotherhood, a New Jersey-based group founded in 2024. A website for the group says it is inspired by the original Jewish Defense League, a group that has been linked by reporting and historical accounts to bombings and attempted assassinations of Arab American political activists in the 1970s and 1980s, according to an official briefed on the investigation.
A court filing written by an FBI agent described Heifler speaking on a video call in February with a group that included an undercover detective about wanting “self-defense” training and wanting space to throw Molotov cocktails. The next day, the complaint said, Heifler met the undercover detective in person and discussed his plan to use Molotov cocktails against Kiswani and flee the country.
The complaint further said Heifler and the undercover detective drove to Kiswani’s residence on March 4 to “conduct surveillance,” and discussed making a dozen Molotov cocktails to throw at her home and at two cars parked outside. Officials said that on Thursday, the undercover detective met Heifler at his Hoboken home, where Heifler had assembled materials for the Molotov cocktails, including a large bottle of Everclear, and where officers later executed a search warrant and recovered eight Molotov cocktails.
Kiswani said the plot would not deter her activism. “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,” she said. She lives in Brooklyn with her infant son and husband, and her advocacy through Within Our Lifetime has drawn criticism, including accusations that her group’s calls to “abolish Zionism” and support for “all forms of struggle,” including violence, cross a line—claims she disputes.
Heifler was charged in a criminal complaint with separate counts of making and possessing destructive devices, each carrying a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison, according to prosecutors. He made an initial appearance in New Jersey federal court on Friday afternoon, and a message left with his attorney was not returned, officials said.
The New York City Police Department unit that carried out the operation is the Racially and Ethnically Motivated Extremism unit within the NYPD’s counterterrorism bureau, a police spokesperson said. Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said the operation reflected the department’s approach to detecting danger early and preventing violence, and Mayor Zohran Mamdani said in a statement that the city would not tolerate violent extremism and that no one should face violence for political beliefs or advocacy.