WASHINGTON – On Wednesday evening, two staff members from the Israeli embassy in Washington were tragically killed by gunfire while departing from an event at a Jewish museum. After being detained, the suspect reportedly shouted, “Free, free Palestine,” according to the police.
Both Israeli and U.S. officials regarded the assault as the latest instance amid a surge in antisemitic incidents, coinciding with Israel intensifying its military operations in the Gaza Strip. Experts on food security have cautioned that without the lifting of Israel’s blockade, Gaza could descend into famine.
Here’s what we know:
What happened?
The victims, a man and a woman, were exiting from the Capital Jewish Museum around 9:15 p.m. on Wednesday when the suspect approached the group of four and began shooting, Metropolitan Police Chief Pamela Smith stated during a news conference.
The suspect was observed pacing outside the museum before the shooting, walked into the museum after the shooting and was detained by event security, Smith said.
When he was taken into custody, the suspect began chanting, “Free, free Palestine,” Smith said. She said law enforcement did not believe there was an ongoing threat to the community.
Who is the suspect?
The suspect has been identified as Elias Rodriguez, 30, of Chicago.
It was not immediately clear whether Rodriguez had an attorney who could comment on his behalf. A telephone number listed in public records rang unanswered.
He was being interviewed early Thursday by D.C.’s Metropolitan Police Department as well as the FBI. The U.S. attorney in Washington will prosecute the case.
Who are the victims?
Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Yechiel Leiter said the two people killed were a young couple about to be engaged, saying the man had purchased a ring this week with the intent to propose next week in Jerusalem. Their identities were not immediately made public.
Former Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Mike Herzog told Israeli Army Radio that the woman killed was an American employee of the embassy and the man was Israeli.
What is Israel’s reaction?
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said Thursday that he was “shocked” by the “horrific, antisemitic” shooting.
“We are witnessing the terrible price of antisemitism and wild incitement against Israel,” he said in a statement.
Israeli diplomats in the past have been targeted by violence, both by state-backed assailants and Palestinian militants over the decades of the wider Israeli-Palestinian conflict that grew out of the founding of Israel in 1948. The Palestinians seek Gaza and the West Bank for a future state, with east Jerusalem as its capital — lands Israel captured in the 1967 war. However, the peace process between the sides has been stalled for years.
Witnesses to the attack
Yoni Kalin and Katie Kalisher were inside the museum when they heard gunshots and a man came inside looking distressed, they said. Kalin said people came to his aid and brought him water, thinking he needed help, without realizing he was the suspect. When police arrived, he pulled out a red keffiyeh and repeatedly yelled, “Free Palestine,’” Kalin said.
“This event was about humanitarian aid,” Kalin said. “How can we actually help both the people in Gaza and the people in Israel? How can we bring together Muslims and Jews and Christians to work together to actually help innocent people? And then here he is just murdering two people in cold blood.”
The influential pan-Arab satellite channel Al Jazeera aired on a loop what appeared to be mobile phone footage of the alleged gunman, wearing a suit jacket and slacks, being pulled away after the shooting, his hands behind his back.
Israel’s new campaign in Gaza
The shooting comes as Israel has launched a new campaign targeting Hamas in the Gaza Strip in a war that has set tensions aflame across the wider Middle East. The war began with the Palestinian militant group Hamas coming out of Gaza on Oct. 7, 2023, to kill 1,200 people and take some 250 hostages back to the coastal enclave.
In the time since, Israel’s devastating campaign in Gaza has killed more than 53,000 people, mostly women and children, according to local health authorities, whose count doesn’t differentiate between combatants and civilians.
The fighting has displaced 90% of the territory’s roughly 2 million population, sparked a hunger crisis and obliterated vast swaths of Gaza’s urban landscape. Aid groups ran out of food to distribute weeks ago, and most of the population of around 2.3 million relies on communal kitchens whose supplies are nearly depleted.
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