LAFAYETTE, La. (VINnews) — Federal agents arrested a 33-year-old Gaza native in Lafayette who prosecutors say armed himself, gathered fighters and crossed into Israel during the Hamas-led attack of Oct. 7, 2023, then entered the United States the following year after lying on a visa application.
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Mahmoud Amin Ya’qub Al-Muhtadi was taken into custody Oct. 16, 2025, the Justice Department said the next day. He is charged with providing material support to a foreign terrorist organization and with fraud and misuse of a visa. A superseding indictment later added counts of conspiracy to provide material support and making a false statement, according to court records in the Western District of Louisiana. He has pleaded not guilty. A trial is set for Jan. 25.
The department said Al-Muhtadi was an operative of the National Resistance Brigades, the military wing of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a Gaza-based group that joined the Hamas-led assault. About 1,200 people were killed that day and about 250 were taken hostage, including 49 U.S. citizens killed and eight abducted, the department said.
According to the criminal complaint, Al-Muhtadi learned of the invasion on the morning of Oct. 7, armed himself, recruited others and crossed into Israel intending to assist in the attack. Investigators said his phone connected to a cell tower near Kibbutz Kfar Aza, where militants killed civilians, including at least four Americans. Court filings cited messages in which he told associates to get ready and bring rifles.
He later applied for a U.S. visa in Cairo and denied any terrorist affiliation, military training or role in the attack, prosecutors said. Customs and Border Protection records show he entered the country on Sept. 12, 2024, during the Biden administration, through Dallas Fort Worth International Airport. He told officials he planned to live in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and work in car repair or food service, then later moved to Lafayette, where he worked at a restaurant, according to the complaint. The FBI said agents located him there in June 2025.
Attorney General Pamela Bondi said Al-Muhtadi had been “hiding out in the United States” and was charged with participating in “the atrocities of October 7 — the single deadliest day for Jewish people since the Holocaust.” Assistant Attorney General John A. Eisenberg called the arrest the first public step by Joint Task Force October 7 toward prosecuting people responsible for harming Americans that day.
U.S. Attorney Zachary A. Keller for the Western District of Louisiana said the case showed that people accused of terrorism “cannot evade justice by hiding in our communities.” The FBI New Orleans Field Office and Joint Task Force October 7 led the investigation, with help from Customs and Border Protection, Louisiana State Police, Lafayette police, the Lafayette Parish Sheriff’s Office and Israeli authorities.
Al-Muhtadi told a magistrate at his first appearance that much of what was alleged was false and that he was innocent, The New York Times reported. His lawyers have asked a judge to dismiss the charges and to suppress evidence tied to Google geofence warrants. Prosecutors have opposed those motions and have asked to present testimony from survivors of the Oct. 7 attack.
The Justice Department said the case was the first of its kind publicly announced in the United States against a person accused of taking part in the attack itself and then obtaining permission to live here.
Photo: The John M. Shaw United States Courthouse in Lafayette, La., where the case is pending. (Federal Judicial Center)
Sources: U.S. Department of Justice, Oct. 17, 2025; criminal complaint and later filings in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana; The Acadiana Advocate, Sept. 22, 2026.