A Bar-Ilan University mathematics professor accused of planning coordinated terrorist attacks intended to kill hundreds of Arabs has asked to be released to house arrest, telling a court that he does not pose a danger and has “exams to grade” at home.
The professor, around 60 and from Petah Tikva, has been in custody since Sept. 17. The investigation began after the Shin Bet domestic security agency received initial information about his alleged plan, after which the case was transferred to the Central District police’s major-crimes unit.
Prosecutors have asked that he remain in custody until the conclusion of legal proceedings. He is charged with preparing to commit an act of terrorism under Israel’s Counter-Terrorism Law, extortion by threats and obstruction of justice.
At a hearing Monday at the Lod District Court, the defendant’s attorneys also asked that the gag order preventing publication of his name remain in place. They argued that the indictment “could harm the State of Israel internationally” and said members of his family in Australia could also suffer if he were identified.
The judge extended the gag order until noon on Oct. 7.
The indictment alleges that the professor spent years developing a detailed plan he called “Ayit,” a Hebrew acronym for a phrase meaning “The People Will Carry Out Transfer.”
Under the plan, prosecutors say, he intended to recruit 71 additional Jewish attackers and divide a total of 72 participants, including himself, into 12 six-person terrorist cells. At least half were supposed to hold firearms licenses.
The cells were allegedly to arm themselves with pistols, rifles, axes and hammers and launch simultaneous surprise attacks in mixed Jewish-Arab cities and Arab and Bedouin communities, with the goal of killing hundreds of people and driving Arabs and Palestinians permanently toward Jordan, Lebanon and the Gaza Strip.
Alleged plan included help from within the IDF
The indictment describes an even broader element of the alleged plan: assistance from people the defendant hoped to recruit from within the IDF.
Prosecutors say he envisioned sympathetic military personnel providing coordinated support to the attacking cells, including Air Force strikes on Arab population centers and assistance from artillery and armored forces.
Bar Ilan University
(Photo: Dana Kopel)
In written instructions described in the indictment, the professor allegedly called for mass killings and the rapid seizure of friction points, roads, entrances and exits to Arab communities, mixed cities and hospitals.
One passage allegedly instructed participants not to show mercy, including toward women and children, and not to stop in response to pleas.
According to prosecutors, the professor believed simultaneous mass attacks, amplified in real time on social media, would prompt Arab citizens of Israel, including Bedouins, as well as Palestinians in east Jerusalem and the West Bank, to flee.
The alleged preparations stretched from February 2023 until his arrest last month and included reconnaissance trips, detailed handwritten documents and repeated attempts to recruit others.
Prosecutors say his thinking began after the May 2021 intercommunal violence and intensified following the Oct. 7 attack and subsequent war.
‘I don’t see who I am dangerous to’
During the court hearing, the professor argued that he should be allowed to return home.
“In my opinion, I am not currently dangerous to anyone. I can be released to house arrest,” he told the court.
“My life has been completely turned upside down. I have so many things to do and financial matters to take care of,” he said.
He also expressed fear for his safety in custody.
“I don’t see who I am dangerous to. If they want to publish this, do it without my name,” he said. “All the prison guards are Muslim and I am afraid. Israel is a small country. Some of them tell me they know what I am accused of. I am alone there.”
“I am a professor at Bar-Ilan and I worked until my arrest. I have exams to grade at home,” he added.
The professor also said he had developed the plan “because of Oct. 7, not for myself,” although the indictment alleges that his preparations began months before the Hamas attack.
“I didn’t do anything for myself. I buried my life for three years,” he said. “I don’t think I should be punished.”
Disguises, reconnaissance and failed recruitment attempts
According to the indictment, the defendant spent roughly a year and a half attempting unsuccessfully to recruit supporters and partners.
He allegedly conducted reconnaissance around the Bedouin community of Tuba-Zangariyye in northern Israel to study access routes and determine how it could be attacked. Prosecutors say he intended the community to be one of the plan’s central targets.
Entrance to Tuba-Zangariyye, a key target in the professor’s alleged plan, which prosecutors say he surveyed to identify the best routes for an attack
(Photo: Shaul Golan)
Investigators also allege that he went to considerable lengths to conceal his identity during his recruitment efforts.
He is accused of wearing a face mask, hat and sunglasses, identifying himself under the false names “Menachem” or “Menachem Livneh,” and using the phones of passersby to contact people connected to his recruitment efforts.
He allegedly wrote his documents by hand instead of using a computer and prepared instructions explaining how participants should avoid detection.
Alleged attempt to recruit Feiglin
The indictment also says the professor sought to involve Zehut leader Moshe Feiglin in his plans.
According to prosecutors, he intended first to recruit Feiglin and then, with his help, identify additional participants.
The professor allegedly planned to invite preselected activists to a Zehut election gathering without initially telling them why. At the event, prosecutors say, the participants would be informed that they had been recruited for a terrorist attack scheduled for the following day and would be given detailed operational instructions.
He attended two public events held by Feiglin and attempted to arrange a meeting and deliver a summary of his plan, but Feiglin did not respond to any of his approaches, according to the indictment.
About a month ago, prosecutors allege, the professor wrote Feiglin a threatening letter criticizing him for refusing to cooperate and warning that he would publish the letter if Feiglin did not assist him, in what the defendant allegedly believed would cause political damage ahead of the election.
Two days later, he allegedly went to Feiglin’s home and handed the letter to a neighbor, asking her to deliver it.
He later attended a Zehut event at Jerusalem’s Mahane Yehuda market and, through another woman, delivered several copies of the letter to the party’s director-general along with another letter containing a similar threat.
Zehut said after the indictment was published that Feiglin and the party leadership contacted police immediately after receiving the threatening and extortion letters and filed a formal complaint.
Feiglin thanked police for handling the case and called for the legal process against the professor to be pursued fully.
Bar-Ilan suspends professor immediately
Bar-Ilan University said the professor would be suspended immediately pending the conclusion of the legal proceedings.
“Bar-Ilan University condemns in the strongest possible terms and is deeply appalled by the acts attributed to the lecturer in the indictment. The University’s leadership calls upon the police and the prosecution to pursue the matter to the fullest extent of the law, should the allegations be substantiated.
“The University has, and will continue to have, zero tolerance for conduct of this nature, conduct that is fundamentally incompatible with the values we share as Jews, as Israelis, and as human beings, and that stands in clear opposition to the values of Bar-Ilan University.
“The lecturer will be suspended from his duties with immediate effect, pending the conclusion of the legal proceedings.”
Prosecutors argue that the alleged conduct, which they say extended over several years, reflects an extremist ideology that led the defendant to formulate a detailed, multi-stage plan for mass killing.
In their request to keep him detained until the end of proceedings, prosecutors said the alleged nationalist and ideological motivation, the extensive preparations and the heightened security tensions during the period demonstrate what they described as an immediate danger to individuals, the public and the state.
First published: 11:39, 10.05.26