Bar Ilan University math professor charged with plotting to murder hundreds of Arabs

Prosecutors on Monday charged a Bar Ilan University math professor with hatching a “thorough and detailed plan” over the past three years to murder hundreds of Arab citizens and cause thousands more to flee to Jordan, Lebanon and Gaza, allegedly with help from “subversive elements” in the military.

The suspect, who was arrested on September 17, tried and failed over the past 18 months to recruit other people to help with his plot, prosecutors said, adding that he has admitted to the charges against him.

He also allegedly tried to find a “significant political figure” to help draft armed operatives for the plan, and settled on far-right-wing former Likud MK Moshe Feiglin, whose Zehut faction has teamed up with Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich’s Religious Zionism ahead of the October 27 election.

When Feiglin didn’t respond to his appeals, the suspect allegedly tried about a month ago to blackmail the politician into joining, while also implementing “various methods of concealment and obstruction” to avoid being discovered.

Feiglin, his deputy Yitzhak Hai Zaga and Zehut executive director Shai Malka handed over to police threatening letters that they allegedly received from the suspect last month, according to a court filing.

The party on Monday thanked law enforcement for its handling of the matter, called for the suspect to be prosecuted in full and vowed to “continue acting with public responsibility and without fear.”

The suspect’s name is under a gag order. The State Prosecutor’s Office identified him as a resident of Petah Tikva who is about 60 years old, lives alone and has a gun license. The university said it “condemns and is shocked” by the allegations and has suspended the professor until the end of the legal proceedings.

According to prosecutors, the suspect named his “extremist, murderous plan” Ayit, which means “eagle” in Hebrew and stood for “Am Ya’ase Transfer,” or “The nation will carry out transfer,” referring to the expulsion of Palestinians.

The suspect began working on his plan in February 2023 and kept working on it until his arrest, prosecutors said. He allegedly decided to develop the plan following the 2021 riots in mixed Arab-Jewish cities, and doubled down on that decision following the Hamas-led onslaught of October 7, 2023.

As part of his preparations, the suspect in March 2023 procured “many aerial photographs” of the northern Bedouin town of Tuba-Zangariyye and also toured the area several times to “examine the best access and attack routes to the town.”

He also began writing a 20-page brief for potential recruits that he completed in June 2024 and kept at both his home and at his Bar Ilan office, prosecutors said.

The document exhorted recruits to “not even show mercy for the women and their cruel and sickening children,” but to avoid burning homes so that Jews could move into them later. The mass exodus of Arabs would be “a day of great joy,” the suspect allegedly wrote.

A section of Ayit planned in 2025 called for 72 armed Jewish terrorists, working in 12 squadrons of six people each, to simultaneously attack Arab population centers with guns, axes and support from the hypothetical “subversive elements” in the military, according to the indictment.

The plan allegedly called for at least half of those terrorists, including the suspect himself, to be licensed gun owners, and estimated the number of victims at 600-700.

The atrocities would have been amplified on social media in real time with the aim of getting Arabs to flee en masse from Israel and the West Bank, prosecutors said.

In tandem, calls would be published for “the entire nation of Israel” to take part in the attacks, with the expectation that “many parts of Israeli society, including soldiers, police officers, West Bank settlers and criminals” would join, according to the indictment.

The suspect hoped to bring together 71 terrorists besides himself at a convention gathered by a candidate in the 2026 election under the guise of a campaign event, according to the alleged plan. The attack was planned to take place the day after the conference, prosecutors said.

The suspect allegedly tried and failed to spark “preliminary interest” from Feiglin during public events the politician held in Ashdod in May 2025 and in Givat Shmuel in November 2025. Starting in April 2025, the suspect also allegedly tried and failed to interest several media personalities in his plan and convince them to connect him to Feiglin.

Around June this year, the suspect also allegedly asked his daughter to help him recruit acquaintances of hers from among the “hilltop youth” — a euphemism for extremist violent settlers in the West Bank — but she refused.

The Central District Attorney’s Office filed an indictment against the suspect at the Lod District Court on Monday on charges of preparation to carry out a terrorist attack, blackmail and obstruction of justice.

Prosecutors requested the court to keep the suspect in jail until the end of the legal proceedings. The prosecutors said his “extremist, murderous ideology” and planning over several years indicate he is a “clear and immediate danger to people, the public and the state,” and that he is liable to tamper with evidence if set free.