NEW YORK (AP) — A man accused of planning to firebomb the home of a prominent Palestinian activist has been arrested following a weekslong undercover operation led by the New York City Police Department, officials said Friday.
The target of the plot was Nerdeen Kiswani, who frequently leads protests in New York against Israel and the war in Gaza through the organization Within Our Lifetime.
Kiswani, 31, said law enforcement officials informed her late Thursday that they had disrupted “a threat on my life that was about to take place."
Federal authorities said they arrested Alexander Heifler on Thursday at his home in Hoboken, New Jersey, as he was assembling Molotov cocktails that he planned 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.
An official who was briefed on the investigation said Heifler, 26, identified as a member of the JDL 613 Brotherhood, a New Jersey-based group founded in 2024 that describes its membership as “Jewish warriors” fighting back against rising antisemitism.
A website for the group says they are inspired by the original Jewish Defense League, a group linked to numerous bombings and attempted assassinations of Arab American political activists in the 1970s and 1980s.
Heifler planned to flee to Israel following the attack, according to the official, who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the details of an ongoing investigation.
An email inquiry sent to the JDL 613 was not returned.
Kiswani, who lives in Brooklyn with her infant son and husband, said the plot would not deter her continued 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.
Heifler was charged in a criminal complaint with separate counts of making and possessing destructive devices, which each carry a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison. A message left with his attorney was not returned. He made an initial appearance in New Jersey federal court on Friday afternoon.
“Let me be clear: We will not tolerate violent extremism in our city,” New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani said in a statement. “No one should face violence for their political beliefs or their advocacy. I am relieved that Nerdeen is safe.”
According to a court filing written by an FBI agent, 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, he met with the undercover detective in person and discussed his plan to use them against Kiswani and flee the country, according to the complaint. “We have (Kiswani's) address," Heifler allegedly told the undercover. "So it’s like that, that would be easier if you’d be more comfortable with that.”
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 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.
Kiswani co-founded the group Within Our Lifetime, which frequently organizes protests against Israel that draw hundreds of participants and often end in arrests. The group’s calls to “abolish Zionism” and support for “all forms of struggle,” including violence, has drawn fierce criticism. Kiswani denies that her criticism of Israel amounts to antisemitism.
Kiswani has been a frequent target of online vitriol. Earlier this year, U.S. Rep. Randy Fine, a Florida Republican, sparked backlash after writing in a social media post that “the choice between dogs and Muslims is not a difficult one.” The post was a response to a message Kiswani shared about dog owners, which she said was a light joke.
“That hate against Palestinians has been bolstered by public officials, by Zionist organizations, who are never held accountable,” she said. “This is the inevitable result of that.”
The operation was carried out by the Racially and Ethnically Motivated Extremism unit within the NYPD’s counterterrorism bureau, a police spokesperson said.
“This is exactly how our intelligence and counterterrorism operation is designed to work — a sophisticated apparatus built to detect danger early and prevent violence before it reaches our streets,” Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said.
This story has been corrected to reflect that the defendant’s first name is Alexander, not Andrew.
FILE - Police detain Nerdeen Kiswani, an organizer of pro-Palestinian demonstration group "Within Our Lifetime" during a protest, Friday, April. 12, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura, File)
President Donald Trump signed an executive order Friday afternoon that should pay TSA employees next week. Trump’s action came after a Homeland Security funding measure collapsed in Congress. The measure passed the Senate early Friday morning but was swiftly rejected by House Republicans. TSA workers were set to miss a second consecutive paycheck Friday.
Here's the latest:
House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries on Friday derided Republicans for failing to bring a vote on a Senate-passed bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security, saying that “House Democrats are prepared to support the bill.”
“This could end, and should end, today,” said Jeffries at a press conference with other members of Democratic leadership. “There is a bipartisan bill that has been sent over from the Senate that would reopen the non-controversial parts of the Department of Homeland Security.”
Former TSA officer Caleb Harmon-Marshall, who now runs a travel newsletter called Gate Access, said he doesn’t think the situation will improve significantly at airports until the officers can be confident that they will continue to get paid reliably.
Right now TSA officers have a lot of questions about what Trump’s executive order will mean for them after Congress was unable to reach an agreement on Homeland Security funding, said Harmon-Marshall, who is in a group with a number of current TSA officers and some who have recently quit during the shutdown.
“I think that the traveling public could expect possibly a week or two of this to continue. This back and forth about all these decisions changing is confusing the TSA officers, so they’re possibly thinking like, ‘Okay, are we getting paid or are we not?’” Harmon-Marshall said.
“There’s still so many questions,” he said.
Harmon-Marshall said the officers he talks to are hoping that they will finally get paid after struggling to pay their bills during the shutdown and accumulating debt and late fees and interest charges.
“Hopefully, with this executive order, the relief does come. I think that they just want to know how long because if it’s only for a pay period, that’s not enough to bring them back. It has to be an extended pay for them to come back or want to stay there,” he said.
The length of this current shutdown coming so soon after last fall’s funding lapse has been too much for some officers to bear.
President Donald Trump has signed a promised executive action that will pay Transportation Security Administration employees, after a deal that sought to do the same stalled in Congress.
Trump signed the action with an eye toward easing long security lines at many of nation’s top airports.
“America’s air travel system has reached its breaking point,” Trump said in the memo authorizing the payments.
The White House has clarified that funding to pay TSA workers will come from President Donald Trump’s big tax cut bill. Trump had floated the idea of declaring a national emergency to facilitate the payments but nothing has been signed yet.
TSA workers are due to miss their second consecutive paycheck today and a Senate-passed DHS funding compromise has collapsed in the House.
The Department of Homeland Security says Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin is starting the process of paying the Transportation Security Administration workforce.
“TSA officers should begin seeing paychecks as early as Monday, March 30. TSA is grateful to the President and Secretary for their leadership to put money back into the pockets of TSA employees who worked without pay during the ongoing Democrat DHS shutdown,” the department said in a statement Friday.
The department did not respond to questions about where the money was coming from to pay the TSA workers.
House Speaker Mike Johnson has rejected a Senate-passed bill to fund Homeland Security as a ‘joke’ and plans a vote on an alternative.
“We’re going to do something different,” Johnson said, challenging the Senate to take up the House’s continuing resolution on Monday — assuming it does pass the House, which is uncertain.
Some senators have already left town after acting in the early morning hours to end the partial shutdown, so it would take time for them to return if the House ends up passing a different measure than the one that cleared the Senate in the early morning hours Friday.
House Republicans are resisting a Senate-passed bill to fund most of the Department of Homeland Security, which risks delaying a resolution to the funding impasse that stretched into its 42nd day Friday.
Next steps are uncertain, but Republicans are angry that the Senate bill does not fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol.
“It is the most reckless thing we’ve ever seen and we’re so frustrated by it,” said Speaker Mike Johnson, who said he would consult with fellow Republicans before announcing next steps.
An airport where security lines have remained manageably short is telling passengers to stop arriving so early.
John Glenn International Airport in Columbus, Ohio, says early birds seeing news of hours-long waits in other cities are making things worse by creating bottlenecks during peak times.
The Ohio airport sought to assure passengers in a social media post Thursday: “90 minutes before departure is all you need.”
Its website said the average expected wait for Columbus travelers to clear airport security on Friday was 23 minutes.
The president of the American Federation of Government Employees said in a letter Friday that TSA officers, Coast Guard civilian workers and employees of the Federal Emergency Management Agency all face missing a third consecutive paycheck if Congress doesn’t act.
Everett B. Kelley implored Congress to “please end the longest partial government shutdown” that has affected Department of Homeland Security employees for 42 days.
“The House can demonstrate its bipartisan support of the hardworking professionals of DHS who serve the public with dedication, respect, and excellence,” Kelley wrote.
The largest pilots union is urging Congress to approve a deal to pay TSA officers before lawmakers leave Washington, D.C., for their spring recess starting next week.
Capt. Jason Ambrosi, who is president of the Air Line Pilots Association, said the TSA officers who keep showing up for work deserve to be paid.
Ambrosi said the officers “are expected to show up every day to keep America’s skies safe and secure. These dedicated professionals will see their second zero dollar paycheck today. They are still worrying about mortgages, childchild keeping the lights on, yet they keep coming to work without being paid.”
A group of nearly two dozen Republicans, including members of the Freedom Caucus, told reporters Friday that they wouldn’t help pass the bill funding TSA and most of DHS unless it funds the entire department, in addition to other demands. Their position could complicate work in the House to quickly pass the bill Friday.
“This deal is bad for America. It’s bad for Americans,” said Rep. Andy Harris, chair of the Freedom Caucus.
The opposition from conservatives could force GOP leaders to rely on Democratic support to pass the legislation, something they generally try to avoid.
The Department of Homeland Security says members of TSA’s National Deployment Force and security officers from other Texas airports are being dispatched to Houston, where about 40% of scheduled TSA officers haven’t come to work this week.
DHS spokesperson Lauren Bis said in a statement late Thursday that Houston travelers have been “experiencing some of the worst wait times in TSA history.”
The staffing shortage has hit especially hard at Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental Airport, where officials warned that waits in security lines could again top four hours Friday.
An update on the airport’s website said 32 security officers from the National Deployment Force, which sends reinforcement to understaffed U.S. airports, were already helping open additional security lanes at George Bush International.
Vanessa Maturana was flying Friday to Chicago from Atlanta, where long security lines have been holding up passengers for hours this week.
She said it’s time for Congress to approve a deal to fund TSA.
“They just need to pay the guys,” Maturana said. “Just get them their salary on time and do what they need to do.”
Orlando Ashford, flying to Washington from Atlanta, agreed a resolution was needed “as soon as possible.”
“To have to sit in lines that literally wrap around the building and outside, it’s inefficient,” said Ashford, who came to the Atlanta airport 3 ½ hours early for his flight. “So hopefully they get this fixed soon.”
As in previous days, security lines at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in Atlanta snaked through the main terminal Friday morning and spilled down the sidewalk outside.
The hourslong waits had travelers fuming.
Arthur Tsebetzis, heading home to West Palm Beach, Florida, called the pileup of passengers “an absolute nightmare.”
“I don’t blame all the airports, but this one here is absolutely an abomination,” Tsebetzis said as he navigated the long check-in line. “It’s looping around, down the street into the parking.” He called the political impasse over funding TSA agents “idiotic.”
“It’s a political pawn,” Tsebetzis said, “and the people are paying the price.”
Speaker Mike Johnson says it’s to be determined how the House will proceed on the Homeland Security funding bill.
“We’re going to have some meetings this morning and figure out what the will is like,” Johnson told reporters.
The funding shutdown has resulted in travel delays and even warnings of airport closures as TSA workers who are missing paychecks stop coming to work.
Multiple airports are experiencing greater than 40% callout rates of TSA workers, and nearly 500 of the agency’s nearly 50,000 transportation security officers have quit during the shutdown. Nationwide on Wednesday, more than 11% of the TSA employees on the schedule missed work, according to DHS. That is more than 3,120 callouts.
Earlier Thursday, Thune announced he had given a “last and final” offer to the Democrats. But as the day dragged on, action stalled out.
Democrats argued the GOP proposals have not gone far enough at putting guardrails on officers from ICE, Customs and Border Protection, and other federal agencies who are engaged in the immigration sweeps, particularly after the deaths of two Americans protesting the actions in Minneapolis.
They want federal agents to wear identification, remove their face masks and refrain from conducting raids around schools, churches and other sensitive places. Democrats have insisted that judges sign off before agents search people’s homes or private spaces — something new Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin has said he is open to.
Trump had largely left the issue to Congress, but warned he was ready to take action, threatening to send the National Guard to airports in addition to his deployment of ICE agents who are now checking travelers’ IDs.
If the Senate package is approved by the House and signed it into law, the action Trump announced to pay TSA agents may be temporary or unneeded.
Senators worked through the night on the deal that would fund much of the rest of the department, including the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Coast Guard and TSA, but without funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Customs was funded, but Border Protection was not.
The package puts no new limits on immigration enforcement, which has remained largely uninterrupted by the shutdown. The GOP’s big tax cuts bill that Trump signed into law last year funneled billions in extra funds to DHS, including $75 billion for ICE operations, ensuring the immigration officers are still being paid despite the lapse.
Next steps in the House, where Speaker Mike Johnson holds a slim majority, are uncertain. Passage will almost certainly require bipartisan support, as lawmakers on the left and right flanks revolt.
Conservative Republicans have panned their own party’s proposals, demanding full funding for immigration operations. Many have vowed to ensure ICE has the resources it needs in the next budget package to carry out Trump’s agenda.
The Senate early Friday morning approved Homeland Security funds to pay Transportation Security Administration agents and most other agencies, but not the immigration enforcement operations at the heart of the budget impasse that has jammed airports, disrupted travel and imposed financial hardship on workers.
The deal, which was approved unanimously without a roll call, next goes to the House, which is expected to consider it later Friday.
With pressure mounting to resolve the 42-day stalemate over funding for the Department of Homeland Security, the endgame emerged in the final hours before TSA workers miss another paycheck Friday. President Donald Trump said he would sign an order to immediately pay the TSA agents, saying he wanted to quickly stop the “Chaos at the Airports.” The deal did not include any of the restraints Democrats have demanded as they sought to rein in Trump’s mass deportation agenda.
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An ICE officer works at a TSA checkpoint at Pittsburgh International Airport in Imperial, Pa., on Thursday, March 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
Travelers stand in a TSA checkpoint line at Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport on Friday, March 27, 2026. (AP Photo/Emilie Megnien)
A TSA agent checks a passenger's ticket and boarding pass at Ohare Airport in Chicago, Thursday, March 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Paul Beaty)
The U.S. Capitol is seen on Sunday, March 22, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Tom Brenner)
