US-German man charged with trying to firebomb embassy building in Tel Aviv

Activists sit in front of the US embassy branch office in Tel Aviv, Israel, during a protest (Ohad Zwigenberg/AP)

A dual US and German citizen has been arrested on charges that he travelled to Israel and attempted to firebomb the branch office of the US embassy in Tel Aviv, officials said.

Prosecutors in New York said on Sunday that the man, Joseph Neumeyer, walked up to the embassy building on May 19 with a backpack containing Molotov cocktails but got into a confrontation with a guard and eventually ran away, dropping his backpack as the guard tried to grab him.