Live Updates: Gunman Kills 2 Israeli Embassy Aides in Washington
The shooting occurred outside the Capital Jewish Museum. A suspect shouted “Free, free Palestine” after he was taken into custody, officials said.
Two young Israeli Embassy aides were shot and killed outside an event at the Capital Jewish Museum in downtown Washington on Wednesday night by a man who shouted pro-Palestinian slogans after he was detained, according to law enforcement officials.
The close-range shooting occurred shortly after 9 p.m. on a street outside the Capital Jewish Museum, where the American Jewish Committee was hosting a reception for young diplomats. The area is the heart of official Washington, packed with federal buildings, embassies and museums. The Capitol, the F.B.I.’s Washington field office and the headquarters of the Justice Department are all near the museum.
The suspect, identified as Elias Rodriguez, 30, of Chicago, was detained shortly after the shooting and there was no ongoing threat to public safety, law enforcement officials said.
Pamela A. Smith, the chief of the Metropolitan Police Department, told reporters at a news conference that Mr. Rodriguez exclaimed, “Free, free Palestine,” after he was in custody. He also told the police where he had discarded the weapon used in the shooting, Chief Smith said.
Israel’s foreign ministry identified the victims as Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Lynn Milgrim. Mr. Lischinsky, 30 was a research assistant in the political department at the embassy and Ms. Milgrim, 26, organized trips to Israel, according to the ministry.
Yechiel Leiter, the Israeli ambassador, said at the news conference that 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,” he said.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel was “outraged” by the killings and had ordered stronger security for Israeli diplomatic missions around the world, his office said. He described the killings as a product of antisemitism that some Israeli officials said had been rising since the Israeli military went to war against Hamas in Gaza following the militant group’s deadly attack on Oct. 7, 2023.
“This is the direct result of toxic antisemitic incitement against Israel and Jews around the world that has been going on since the Oct. 7 massacre,” Gideon Saar, Israel’s foreign minister, said at a news conference in Jerusalem on Thursday.
On social media, President Trump wrote: “These horrible D.C. killings, based obviously on antisemitism, must end, NOW! Hatred and Radicalism have no place in the USA.”
Mayor Muriel Bowser of Washington said that the shooting would “frighten a lot of people in our city and in our country.”
“I want to be clear that we will not tolerate this violence or hate in our city,” she said. “We will not tolerate any acts of terrorism, and we are going to stand together as a community in the coming days and weeks” against antisemitism.
After the deadly Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, the Israeli military began a campaign in Gaza that has devastated the enclave. It set off a wave of pro-Palestinian protests, including at Israeli embassies and at American college and university campuses, most of which have been nonviolent. The Israeli Embassy in Washington has been a particular focus for protesters.
The debate around the protests has often been vitriolic. Some critics, including the Trump administration and Israel, have said the protesters are promoting antisemitism and inciting violence against Jews. Many demonstrators and their supporters have said that such accusations are intended to suppress political speech and their support for the Palestinian cause.
Police officials said a single suspect seen pacing in front of the museum before the shooting on Wednesday was responsible for the attack. He approached four people who were leaving the event, shooting the two victims, and then walked into the museum, where he was detained by security officers, they said.
Tal Naim Cohen, a spokeswoman for the Israeli Embassy, wrote on social media before the news conference in Washington that the two staff members were shot “at close range.”
Ms. Smith, the Washington police chief, said it was not immediately clear why the suspect entered the museum after the shooting or what he planned to do inside. Mr. Rodriguez had not been previously identified as a threat in Washington, officials added.
Dan Bongino, the deputy director of the F.B.I., said the suspect was being interviewed by Washington police in conjunction with the agency’s counterterrorism team. “Early indicators are that this is an act of targeted violence,” he said on social media.
The American Jewish Committee event at the Capital Jewish Museum was described online as a “Young Diplomats Reception,” intended to bring together young Jewish professionals between the ages of 22 and 45, as well as the Washington diplomatic community.
“We are excited to introduce this year’s theme: turning pain into purpose,” the group said in the online invitation, adding that the event would feature members of groups working to respond to humanitarian crises throughout the Middle East and North Africa.
Ted Deutch, the American Jewish Committee’s chief executive, said, “We are devastated that an unspeakable act of violence took place outside the venue.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio condemned the attack. “This was a brazen act of cowardly, antisemitic violence,” he wrote on social media. “Make no mistake: we will track down those responsible and bring them to justice.”
John Yoon, Aaron Boxerman, Claire Moses and Celeste Lavin contributed reporting.
Sarah Milgrim’s parents didn’t know that Yaron Lischinsky was planning to propose to her until after the couple was killed by a gunman in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday night.
Her parents had assumed that marriage was in the picture. Ms. Milgrim, who grew up in Prairie Village, Kan., had met Mr. Lischinsky shortly after joining the Israeli Embassy a year and a half ago to organize missions and visits by delegations. Mr. Lischinsky, a researcher at the embassy, had met her parents several times.
“He was incredible,” Ms. Milgrim’s father, Robert Milgrim, said in an interview. “He was very much like Sarah: passionate, extremely intelligent, dedicated to what he does, always on the cause of what’s right.”
A few months ago, Ms. Milgrim, 26, told her parents that she planned to travel with Mr. Lischinsky, 30, to meet his family in Jerusalem for the first time. What they didn’t know, and would only learn after the shooting, is that he had bought an engagement ring before the trip.
With the couple set to fly to Israel on Sunday, Ms. Milgrim’s mother, Nancy Milgrim, planned to travel on Friday to Washington from Prairie Village, a Kansas City suburb, to take care of her daughter’s dog, a goldendoodle named Andy.
On Wednesday night, Mr. Milgrim was getting ready for bed when news alerts on his cellphone appeared, describing a deadly shooting in Washington outside an event for the American Jewish Committee, where his daughter was a fellow. He immediately called the F.B.I. and the local police station, but neither could provide any information.
Nancy Milgrim opened a family locator app on her cellphone and looked for her daughter’s location. It showed her at the Capital Jewish Museum, where the shooting had taken place.
“I pretty much already knew,” Mr. Milgrim said. “I was hoping to be wrong.”
Then Nancy Milgrim’s phone rang. It was Israel’s ambassador to the United States, Yechiel Leiter. He said Ms. Milgrim and her boyfriend had died, and gave his condolences.
It was a horrific moment, Mr. Milgrim said. He pointed to rising antisemitism since Israel went to war in Gaza following the Hamas-led attacks on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
“What went through my mind is, I feel the antisemitism that has surfaced since Oct. 7 and also since the election of President Trump,” Mr. Milgrim said. “It’s just an extension of my worst fears.”
It was the ambassador who told them that Mr. Lischinsky had planned to propose in Jerusalem. Mr. Leiter separately told reporters that Mr. Lischinsky had bought the ring this week and intended to propose next week.
“The ironic part is that we were worried for our daughter’s safety in Israel,” Mr. Milgrim added. “But she was murdered three days before going.”
Sarah Milgrim and Mr. Lischinsky both held Master’s degrees and were passionate about their work at the embassy, according to others who knew them. Mr. Lischinsky, originally from Germany, moved to Israel when he was 16, and had known from a young age that wanted to be a diplomat for Israel, said Prof. Nissim Otmazgin, one of his teachers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
“He saw that as his calling,” said Professor Otmazgin, the dean of the university’s faculty of humanities. Mr. Lischinsky studied there from 2018 to 2021, earning a bachelor’s degree in international relations and Asian studies.
Mr. Lischinsky specialized in Japanese studies and was an outstanding student, according to Professor Otmazgin. “He was an idealist,” he said. “He wanted to build bridges between Israel and other countries, especially in Asia.”
He grew up in a culturally mixed family with a Jewish father and a Christian mother, and was a practicing Christian, according to Ronen Shoval, the dean of the Argaman Institute for Advanced Studies in Jerusalem, where Mr. Lischinsky participated in a yearlong program in classical liberal conservative thought after earning a master’s degree in government and diplomacy.
“He was a devout Christian,” Dr. Shoval said, “but he had tied his fate to the people of Israel.”
Myra Noveck contributed reporting from Jerusalem.
Israelis reacted with shock and horror on Thursday to the killing of two staff members at the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C., which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called an “appalling antisemitic murder.”
The shooting took place as the two aides were leaving an event organized by the American Jewish Committee at the Capital Jewish Museum. The police said that they had arrested a suspect in connection with the shooting who shouted,“Free, free Palestine,” after he was taken into custody.
The Israeli Foreign Ministry has identified the victims as Sarah Lynn Milgrim, who was responsible for organizing missions and visits to Israel, and Yaron Lischinsky, a researcher in the political department. Yechiel Leiter, the Israeli ambassador to the United States, said that they were a couple about to be engaged.
David Schiff, who befriended Mr. Lischinsky at university, described him as “an incredibly talented guy — but more importantly, someone who was very kind.”
“He wanted to work in diplomacy. He was so excited to work at the embassy in D.C., and he loved D.C.,” Mr. Schiff, 31, said. “It’s all just shocking.”
Gideon Saar, the Israeli foreign minister, called the attack a consequence of “toxic antisemitic incitement against Israel and Jews around the world” since the Israel-Hamas war began in October 2023.
He blamed critics of the Israeli government in international organizations and government officials, “especially from Europe,” who have leveled accusations of genocide and crimes against humanity over the war in Gaza. Israel has strongly denied the accusations.
Hamas launched a surprise attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, that killed some 1,200 people and led to about 250 others being taken to Gaza as hostages.
Israel initially enjoyed widespread support for its subsequent campaign against Hamas and ground invasion of the Gaza Strip. But as the war has dragged on, Israel’s reputation abroad has suffered amid the skyrocketing death toll in Gaza. More than 53,000 people have been killed in the enclave as Israel has sought to destroy Hamas and free the hostages, according to local health officials, who do not distinguish between civilian and combatant deaths.
Many Israelis have become warier about traveling overseas, fearing that their nationality could put them in danger. Israeli officials have at times warned the public to avoid showing “Israeli and Jewish symbols,” lest they become potential targets.
Israeli politicians were quick to suggest that their domestic opponents bore some responsibility for the mounting criticism of Israel that they said had led to the killings.
Yair Golan, who leads the left-wing Democrats party, blamed Mr. Netanyahu’s right-wing government, which has vowed to take control of all of Gaza, of “fueling antisemitism and hatred of Israel.”
“The result is unprecedented political isolation and danger to every Jew in every corner of the globe,” Mr. Golan said in a statement.
Itamar Ben-Gvir, the far-right national security minister, suggested that leftist politicians who oppose the war — like Mr. Golan — had encouraged the attack by making statements critical of Israeli policies. He referenced a remark Mr. Golan made this week, in which Mr. Golan said that Israeli forces were “killing babies as a hobby” in Gaza.
“The blood of the victims is on their hands,” Mr. Ben-Gvir wrote on social media.
Israel’s diplomatic missions abroad have long been targets for attacks by groups opposed to the existence of the Jewish state. In 1982, Palestinian gunmen shot Israel’s ambassador to Britain.
In 1992, a bombing at the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires, Argentina killed 29 people, most of them Argentine civilians. An Argentine court ruled last year that the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah had carried out that attack.
Last month, the British police charged a man with terrorism over an attempt to break into the Israeli Embassy in London while carrying two knives. There were no casualties. According to British law enforcement officials, the suspect had sought to “send a message to the Israeli government to stop the war” in Gaza.
