2 Israeli Embassy Aides Fatally Shot in Latest Antisemitic Attack in Washington

Two Israeli embassy aides from the Israeli Embassy were shot and killed Wednesday night outside an event at the Capital Jewish Museum in downtown Washington, D.C by a man who shouted “free, free Palestine,” police said. 

The latest antisemitic attack took place as the two aides were leaving an event organized by the American Jewish Committee at the museum after 9 p.m. ET. The Metropolitan Police Chief Pamela Smith said a man was observed “pacing back and forth” outside the building. 

The man got close to a group of four people and then opened fire, Smith said. The shooter, identified as Elias Rodriguez, 30, of Chicago, was detained shortly after he entered the museum and detained by event security, said Smith. The Israeli foreign ministry identified the victims as Yaron Lischinsky, a research assistant in the political department at the embassy, and Sara Lynn Milgrim, who organized trips to Israel. 

The two people killed were a couple about to be engaged. “The young man purchased a ring this week with the intention of proposing to his girlfriend next week in Jerusalem,” Yechiel Leiter, the Israeli ambassador, said. 

According to an alleged manifesto written and signed by Rodriguez, he wanted to take action against the "genocidal apartheid state,"

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered an increase in security arrangements at Israeli diplomatic missions around the world. In a statement from his office, he said, “My heart aches for the families of the beloved young man and woman, whose lives were cut short by a heinous antisemitic murderer.”

Gideon Saar, Israel’s foreign minister, called the shooting a “toxic antisemitic incitement against Israel and Jews around the world” after the Oct.7, 2023, attack when Hamas-led terrorists infiltrated southern Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages. Fifty-eight hostages remain in Gaza, and Israeli authorities believe that 20 are alive, and up to 38 of them have been killed. 

US President Trump wrote in a post on his social media site Truth Social, “Hatred and Radicalism have no place in the USA. So sad that such things as this can happen! God Bless you ALL!”

Another American politician, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, denounced the shooting on X: “Absolutely nothing justifies the murder of innocents.” 

The number of antisemitic attacks has sharply increased in the United States, particularly on college campuses, and around the world. Jews in Europe face some of the highest levels of antisemitism, according to a survey by EU Agency for Fundamental Rights.  

Last month, British police charged a man with terrorism after he attempted to break into the Israeli embassy in London with knives. According to local law enforcement officials, the suspect, Abdullah Sabah Albardi, 33, wanted to “send a message to the Israeli government to stop the war” in Gaza. 

Cecilia Lazzaro Blasbalg is the editor-in-chief of the Mideast Journal with a decade of news editing and reporting at Haaretz and Times of Israel. She is a PhD candidate at Tel Aviv University.