A Palestinian-American student at the University of Central Florida is facing felony charges after he was accused of making death threats against three Jewish students on campus Tuesday morning in the latest example of college campus turmoil over the brutal conflict in and around the Gaza Strip.
Across the country, educational leaders have been grappling with how to respond to an eruption of incidents that have ranged from verbal disagreements to physical violence since the war began in October. At UCF, Seif Asi, 21, is accused of saying he was “going to kill” three students in an emotional outburst.
In a message sent to students and staff Wednesday, UCF Police Chief Carl Metzger, called the incident “a direct anti-Semitic threat.”
The incident “calls for an additional reminder to our community to reflect on the power of words, the importance of civility, and the need for respect for one another,” Metzger wrote.
According to a UCF Police Department arrest report, Asi was walking past the John T. Washington Center on Aquarius Agora Drive on campus when he saw three students placing more than 1,000 small Israeli flags into the ground to represent the people killed by Hamas soldiers in southern Israel in a surprise attack on Oct. 7. Asi, who has family in Palestine, told police that he initially ignored them, but then went back to confront them.
Asi “admitted he threatened the students by stating, ‘I’m going to kill you’,” the report said.
Asi went on to tell campus police that the students he threatened were the “same group” who participated in a pro-Israel march on campus the previous week.
Asi “apologized for his behavior and he stated that he knew he should not have made the threat,” the report said. “The defendant said his emotions for the better of him and he requested to go and apologize to the students he threatened. The defendant said he is tired of seeing students on campus defending the killing of Palestinian people.”
Despite the apology, Metzger said in his letter to students that Asi will be held responsible. Asi is facing three felony counts of intimidation and making credible threats to a person wearing a religious item.
“At UCF, we all have the right to free expression — but violence, threats of violence, and unlawful harassment will not be tolerated,” Metzger said.
Asi was not armed and does not own a gun, police said. He declined to comment Wednesday saying he was advised not to speak to media.
In a Thursday interview with the Orlando Sentinel, Alex Rosenblum, 18, one of the UCF students Asi is accused of threatening, said he had never met Asi before Tuesday.
Rosenblum said he and two other students representing the UCF chapter of the organization Students Supporting Israel, an international pro-Israel organization with chapters in more than a dozen states and several countries, had set up a table and the flags with permission from the UCF Office of Student Involvement. The three had been at the table about 90 minutes when Asi approached them, Rosenblum said.
Rosenblum said Asi was immediately “argumentative.” Rosenblum said he tried to deescalate the situation, then sought to end the conversation.
“He walked off and said something to the effect of ‘this won’t be here when I come back and shoot it up,'” Rosenblum said. “As you might expect, that was really, really scary.”
Ido Levin, a 23-year-old international student from Israel who was also threatened, said his parents are concerned about the incident.
“They asked me to go back home and not to stay here,” he said. “It does not feel safe to stay here.”
Rosenblum said their organization will likely take a few weeks off to give time for tensions to calm but he and other members of the UCF Students Supporting Israel group will continue to publicly speak up for Israel.
The third student who Asi is accused of threatening did not respond to a request for comment.
Rosenblum and Levin said this threat is the latest in a series of what they see as anti-Semitic incidents on campus since the Oct. 7 attack on Israel. They said student groups have invited pro-Palestine speakers that spoke favorably about Hamas and that the university has permitted pro-Palestinian flyers to stay up on campus while pro-Israel flyers were removed.
Though both students said they are satisfied with the university’s response to the threat, they said the university’s failure to respond to these earlier incidents left room for anti-Semitism to escalate.
UCF Spokesperson Courtney Gilmartin said university leaders condemn hate, violence and anti-Semitism and have been meeting with students, parents and the community to urge compassion and understanding.
“We recognize that global events are impacting members of our community and have for the past several months extended additional support and guidance to ensure all our students can feel safe and be successful during their time at UCF,” Gilmartin said.
