FBI charges man with attempted mass casualty attack against Israeli consulate in New York

NEW YORK — The FBI has arrested a suspect for an attempted mass casualty terror attack against the Israeli consulate in New York City, according to the consulate.

The suspect, Abdullah Ezzeldin Taha Mohamed Hassan, was an Egyptian national living in Falls Church, Virginia, who instructed an FBI informant to carry out the attack, according to a criminal complaint filed on Monday.

Hassan ran several social media accounts that supported ISIS, al-Qaeda and Hamas, and advocated for violence against Jews, the FBI says in the complaint filed in a federal court in Virginia.

Local police located Hassan after receiving a tip about one of his accounts on X. An undercover FBI asset then connected with Hassan on social media and secure messaging apps, in conversations that took place last month and this month.

Hassan instructed the informant on how to join ISIS and shared jihadist propaganda, including a video that advocated for killing Jews. He also encouraged the informant to carry out an attack, sending him instructions on how to create a “martyrdom video,” the complaint says.

The suspect sent the informant bomb-making instructions and told the informant, who said he was in New York, to target a building representing Jews, later settling on the Israeli consulate.

Ofir Akunis, Israeli’s consul-general in New York, thanks US security services for thwarting the attempted attack.

“This attempted attack by terror organizations is an attack on the sovereign soil of the State of Israel in its entirety,” Akunis says in a statement to The Times of Israel.

“It’s proof that terror knows no boundaries and that we must fight it everywhere and every time.”