ORLANDO, Florida — Authorities have indicted a Jordanian citizen living in Orlando for vandalizing a solar energy facility and threatening to bomb businesses that support Israel, the Department of Justice disclosed in a high-profile announcement Thursday.

Hashem Younis Hashem Hnaihen, 43, donned a mask and attacked multiple local businesses at night in June, including a McDonald’s in Maitland and Starbucks in Orlando and Winter Park, smashing in their front doors and windows and leaving behind threatening letters, the DOJ release alleges.

He was arrested July 11 and indicted by a federal grand jury last week on four counts of threatening to use explosives and one count of destruction of an energy facility, with a maximum possible sentence of 60 years.

The charges come at a time of heightened concern about antisemitic and anti-Palestinian threats in the U.S., driven in part by conflict in the Middle East. The nation’s two highest ranking law enforcement officials weighed in on the arrest, conveying the gravity of Hnaihen’s alleged actions and threats.

“Such acts and threats of violence, whether they are targeting the places that Americans frequent every day or our country’s critical infrastructure, are extremely dangerous and will not be tolerated by the Justice Department,” Attorney General Merrick B. Garland said in the statement.

FBI Director Christopher Wray said Hnaihen undertook his actions “under the guise of expressing his beliefs.” But, he continued, “Violence and destruction of property to threaten and intimidate others will never be tolerated.”

Hnaihen said in the letters addressed to the U.S government and left at the businesses he vandalized that he would “destroy or explode everything here in whole America. Especially the companies and factories that support the racist state of Israel.”

He left similar letters at an industrial propane gas distribution depot in Orlando and at a solar power facility in Wedgefield he attacked later that month, where he spent hours “systematically destroying solar panel arrays,” authorities said. He smashed panels, cut wires, and targeted critical electronic equipment, causing an estimated $700,000 in damage.

He will remain in custody until the trial begins.

The arrest, made by the Orange County Sheriff’s Office, resulted from a multiagency investigation by the Sheriff’s Office and the FBI with help from the Orlando, Maitland and Winter Park police departments, the release said.

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