Mathematician accused of plotting to murder hundreds of Arabs named as Shahar Nevo

The Bar Ilan University mathematician charged with plotting to murder hundreds of Arabs was named Wednesday as Shahar Nevo, after a gag order on his identity expired.

Nevo is a full professor whose research focuses on complex analysis and operator theory. He was arrested on September 17, and the Central District Attorney’s Office filed an indictment against him at the Lod District Court on Monday on charges of preparation to carry out a terrorist attack, blackmail, and obstruction of justice.

The State Prosecutor’s Office previously identified him as a resident of Petah Tikva who is about 60 years old, lives alone, and has a gun license.

According to the indictment, Nevo sought to coax, then blackmail, former Likud MK Moshe Feiglin into helping find 71 other terrorists to launch simultaneous attacks on Arab population centers with help from hypothetical “subversive elements” in the military.

The goal of the plan was to make Arabs flee en masse from Israel and the West Bank to Gaza, Lebanon and Jordan, according to the indictment. Nevo began to formulate the plan in February 2023 but failed to recruit anyone, prosecutors said when filing the charges against him.

Prosecutors said he has admitted to the charges against him and asked that he be held until the end of proceedings.

During a court hearing earlier this week, Nevo said that his attorney suggested to him that he act a bit crazy to try and lighten his eventual sentence, but that he rejected the idea, the Haaretz newspaper reported.

“I am completely competent, and I stand behind my actions,” he said.

Nevo was said to argue that he should be released from jail, claiming that “at the moment there is no danger to anyone. My life has been turned upside down. I have so many things to do and financial issues to take care of,” as well as student exams to grade. “I don’t see who I am a danger to.”

“I didn’t do anything for myself. I don’t think I should be punished,” he said, according to the report. “In certain ways, my life was in the grave even beforehand.”

He also claimed that all of his jailers are Muslims, “and I’m afraid, I’m alone there.”

According to the Ynet outlet, Nevo began studying at Tel Aviv University in 1984, and three years later got his degree. In 1992, he began teaching mathematics at Bar-Ilan University and joined the academic faculty in 1999. A year later, after completing a doctorate, he was made a professor.

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

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.

In tandem, calls would be published on social media 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.

Prosecutors say he tried to find a “significant political figure” to help draft armed operatives for the plan, and settled on the far-right 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.