Newly unsealed court documents show that a man from Gaza traveled to Israel ahead of the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks and provided false information to obtain a permanent resident visa in the U.S. Federal officials said they arrested the man Thursday in Lafayette, Louisiana, and announced charges against him related to the attacks on Friday.
Mahmoud Amin Ya’qub Al-Muhtadi, 33, traveled to Israel after he first learned of the planned Oct. 7 attacks, court documents showed. The documents also say Al-Muhtadi gathered other individuals to participate in the attacks. According to arrest records, cell towers near the Israel-Gaza border pinged his phone in areas where attacks took place.
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None of the documents, however, specify what role Al-Muhtadi played in the attacks or whether he injured or killed any individuals during the attacks.
Al-Muhtadi in the US
Court documents said that Al-Muhtadi lied on his visa application about his affiliation with multiple paramilitary groups that participated in the Hamas-led attacks. Al-Muhtadi allegedly met with consular officials in the U.S. Embassy in Cairo on Aug. 6, 2024. While the officials said they didn’t specifically remember Al-Muhtadi, they said he would have had to take an oath in either English or Arabic to confirm all of the information on his application was true, according to the court documents. He also provided fingerprints at the time.
After his application was approved, Al-Muhtadi came to the U.S. on Sept. 12, 2024, according to a release from the Justice Department. He first settled in Tulsa, Oklahoma — the city he said he intended to move to on his visa paperwork. He moved to Lafayette, Louisiana, in June 2025, according to court documents.
The Justice Department’s task force
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Forty-three Americans were among the more than 1,200 people killed during the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Attorney General Pam Bondi credited Al-Muhtadi’s arrest to a task force she created earlier this year to investigate the Oct. 7 attacks.
“After hiding out in the United States, this monster has been found and charged with participating in the atrocities of October 7 — the single deadliest day for Jewish people since the Holocaust,” Bondi said in a statement. “While nothing can fully heal the scars left by Hamas’s brutal attack, this Department’s Joint Task Force October 7 is dedicated to finding and prosecuting those responsible for that horrific day, including the murder of dozens of American citizens.”
