The Palestinian activist who the NYPD says was the target of an assassination plot is speaking publicly for the first time since the plan was revealed. 


“I will continue to speak out for my people because no one should have to face this,” Nerdeen Kiswani said on Monday. “No mother should have to hold her child and wonder if their home is being targeted.”

What You Need To Know

The Palestinian activist who the NYPD says was the target of an assassination plot is speaking publicly for the first time since the plan was revealed

Nerdeen Kiswani, a 31-year-old co-founder of Within Our Lifetime, which is a pro-Palestinian advocacy organization, was joined by her attorneys and activists in City Hall Park on Monday a few days after the FBI told her they had foiled an attack on her life

Federal law enforcement officials said the suspect, 26-year-old Alexander Heifler of Hoboken, New Jersey, is charged in connection with a plot to construct and use improvised incendiary devices targeting her home in an attempt to kill Kiswani

The 31-year-old co-founder of Within Our Lifetime, a pro-Palestinian advocacy organization, was joined by her attorneys and activists in City Hall Park, just a few days after the FBI told her they had foiled an attack on her life. 



“He said that I was, my safety was in danger, that somebody was on their way to harm me, but that they made an arrest and they don’t believe I’m in imminent danger,” Kissani said of her conversation with an FBI agent. 


Federal law enforcement officials said the suspect, 26-year-old Alexander Heifler of Hoboken, New Jersey, is charged in connection with a plot to construct and use improvised incendiary devices targeting her home in an attempt to kill Kiswani. 


According to officials, Heifler is charged with unlawful possession of destructive devices and one count of making destructive devices. The U.S. attorney for the District of New Jersey says there is no longer any threat to the community.

However, Kiswani and her attorneys disagree. 



“The assertion that there is no longer a threat, no longer a danger, is at best premature, perhaps naïve and also illustrative of a kind of denial,” Jonathan Abady of the law firm Emery Celli Abady Brinckerhoff Ward & Maazel LLP said. “It does not appear, based on the evidence thus far, that this person acted alone.”



Kiswani and her attorneys are blaming the foiled attack in part on what they are calling a normalization of Islamophobia. They’re calling on Heifler to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

However, they’re also calling for accountability from public officials who, they say, promote Islamaphobia. 



“Those who bear political responsibility for creating the climate in which an attempted attack like this was inevitable are holding positions of power in the federal government,” said Eric Lee of the law firm, Lee & Godshall-Bennett LLP.

Lee is also representing Kiswani. 


According to NYPD sources, Heifler identifies as a member of the JDL 613 Brotherhood, an offshoot of the Jewish Defense League — a pro-Israel group designated by the F.B.I. as a terrorist organization.



Law enforcement agencies, including the FBI and the NYPD, were involved in the investigation.

Mayor Zohran Mamdani praised their life-saving work.

“I am thankful for their and the FBI’s work to ensure that this plot, which could have endangered Nerdeens’ life as well as other New Yorkers, was thwarted,” Mamdani said. 


Kiswani’s attorneys say Heifler planned to escape to Israel for protection if he was able to carry out the attack. 
The charges of unlawful possession of destructive devices and making of destructive devices each carry a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a maximum fine of $10,000.

The news comes just over a month after Kiswani filed a federal lawsuit under the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871 against the Betar Zionist Organization — a pro-Israel group — in late February.

The complaint alleged a coordinated campaign of harassment, including cash bounties offered to anyone who would physically harm Kiswani.