Eight Pro-Palestinian Activists Charged in U.S. With Plotting Attacks on Jews

The U.S. Department of Justice has filed indictments against eight pro-Palestinian activists, five women and three men, whom authorities say ran an organized campaign of threats, intimidation and property damage against Jews, Israel supporters and senior University of Michigan officials in an effort to pressure the university to divest from Israel. FBI agents arrested the eight suspects, ages 21 to 28, at several locations in Michigan, Illinois and Wisconsin. The indictments, filed on May 20 but made public only now, accuse them of a series of offenses related to threats, vandalism and conspiracy to intimidate.

The defendants are: Zainab Hakim, 23, of Canton, Michigan; Amatullah Hakim, 21, of Ann Arbor, Michigan; Paige Elizabeth Pyuk, 26, of Ann Arbor, Michigan; Ahmad Korkaya, 28, of Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Jonathan Zuo, 22, of Ann Arbor, Michigan; Alexander Sepulveda, 23, of Chicago, Illinois; Miriam Oda, 24, of Dearborn, Michigan; and Collin Hunter Wager, 24, of Ann Arbor, Michigan.

According to court documents, the defendants used encrypted messages on social media and collaboration platforms outside the United States to identify targets, gather personal information and plan actions against them. The targets included senior University of Michigan officials, law enforcement, businesses identified as supporting Israel, and the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Detroit.

According to the indictment, the case began shortly after Hamas’s October 7, 2023 terror attack. On October 20 of that year, the defendants published a list of demands to the University of Michigan administration, calling for a “complete and total” disinvestment from Israel and companies that support it. After, in their view, they did not receive a sufficient response, they moved, according to authorities, to “autonomous actions,” including planning to take over university buildings, block campus events and vandalize property.

The indictment says members of the group exchanged especially violent messages, discussing ways to “kill,” “torture” and “terrorize” their targets. In one conversation, Ahmad Karam Korkaya, then a medical student, wrote about a member of the university board that he would “poison her slowly.” Another defendant replied that the group should “go into that house and then burn it down.”

According to authorities, the activists did not stop at threats. They drove at night to homes and businesses they had previously marked, spray-painted graffiti and symbols, broke windows, blocked entrances and even threw glass jars containing acid and paint at homes. In addition, they allegedly recorded their acts and circulated the images online along with threatening messages such as, “You cannot hide” and “We will only come back stronger.”

The investigation also found that some of the symbols sprayed included inverted red triangles, a symbol used by Hamas in propaganda videos to mark targets, along with red handprints and phrases such as “Intifada” and “Divest now.”

Among other things, it is alleged that the eight defendants were also responsible for vandalizing the Jewish Federation building in Detroit on October 7, 2024, the first anniversary of the Hamas massacre in Israel.

“In America, we are governed by the rule of law, not by fear,” said federal prosecutor Jerome F. Gorgon Jr. “The threats and alleged attempts to intimidate public officials, businesses and the Jewish Federation are anti-American.”

The FBI also stressed the seriousness of the case. Jennifer Runyan, the special agent in charge of the FBI’s Detroit office, said that “no one has the right to threaten, intimidate or coerce public officials, police officers, community institutions or their families.” According to her, the suspects often acted while masked and under cover of night, in an attempt to obscure their tracks and destroy evidence.