By Jasper Ward and Emily Rose
WASHINGTON/JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Two Israeli embassy staffers were killed by a lone gunman in Washington, D.C., while leaving an event outside the Capital Jewish Museum on Wednesday night, and the suspect chanted “Free Palestine” after he was taken into custody, officials said.
The victims, Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Lynn Milgrim, a young couple about to get engaged, were committed to building bridges between Arabs and Jews in hopes of ending bloodshed in the Middle East, according to people who knew them and advocacy groups they belonged to.
Israeli embassies around the world immediately stepped up security.
Israel faces sustained international condemnation for its escalating Gaza military offensive, while Jewish advocacy groups have warned of a rise in antisemitic incidents globally.
Washington Metropolitan Police Chief Pamela Smith said a man shot at a group of four people with a handgun, hitting both the victims. He was seen pacing outside the museum prior to the shooting, little more than a mile (2 km) from the White House.
Smith said the single suspect, identified as 30-year-old Elias Rodriguez from Chicago, chanted “Free Palestine, Free Palestine” after being taken into custody by event security.
“Once in handcuffs, the suspect identified where he discarded the weapon, and that weapon has been recovered, and he implied that he committed the offense,” Smith said, adding that he had had no previous contact with police.
FBI agents were seen at his apartment in Chicago on Thursday, where law enforcement blocked off the street.
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi told reporters that authorities believe the suspect acted alone.
Witness Katie Kalisher, 29, said she was among people in the museum who were chatting to a man who entered looking very scared after gunshots were heard outside when he suddenly pulled out a keffiyeh scarf.
“He says, ‘I did it. I did it for Gaza, free, free Palestine.’ And he’s chanting this. And then suddenly the police come in and they arrest him,” said Kalisher, a jewelry designer.
SUSPECT’S BACKGROUND
Rodriguez was once affiliated with a far-left group in Chicago, the Party for Socialism and Liberation, according to a post from the group on X. The group said that Rodriguez had a brief association with a PSL branch that ended in 2017 and that they knew of no contact with him in more than seven years.
“We have nothing to do with this shooting and do not support it,” the organization said.
Rodriguez worked at the healthcare nonprofit American Osteopathic Information Association, the organization confirmed in a statement expressing sympathy for the victims.
“We were shocked and saddened to learn that an AOIA employee has been arrested as a suspect in this horrific crime,” the statement said.
He had also worked as an oral history researcher at The HistoryMakers, a nonprofit dedicated to preserving African American stories, according to a now-deleted biography on the group’s website.
Rodriguez was born and reared in Chicago and graduated from the University of Illinois Chicago with an English degree, the deleted page said. He previously worked as a content writer for commercial and noncommercial technology firms, the page said.
U.S. President Donald Trump condemned the shooting.
“These horrible D.C. killings, based obviously on antisemitism, must end, NOW!” he said in a message on Truth Social. “Hatred and Radicalism have no place in the USA.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his heart ached for the families of the victims, “whose lives were cut short in a moment by an abhorrent antisemitic murderer.”
“We are witness to the terrible cost of the antisemitism and wild incitement against the State of Israel,” he said on X, adding that both “must be fought to the utmost.”
The shooting is likely to fuel polarization in the United States over the war in Gaza between supporters of Israel and pro-Palestinian demonstrators.
Conservative supporters of Israel led by Trump have branded pro-Palestinian protests as antisemitic. His administration has detained protesters without charge and cut off funding to elite U.S. universities that have permitted demonstrations.
VICTIMS PLANNED TO GET ENGAGED
Yechiel Leiter, Israel’s ambassador to the U.S., told reporters that Lischinsky had bought an engagement ring and planned to propose to Milgrim next week during a trip to Jerusalem.
The German-Israeli Society said Lischinsky had grown up in Bavaria and spoke fluent German.
“We remember him as an open-minded, intelligent and deeply committed person whose interest in German-Israeli relations and ways to achieve peaceful coexistence in the Middle East brightened the environment around him,” said the society’s president, Volker Beck.
Lischinsky always planned to become a diplomat and thought his diverse background – a Christian who converted to Judaism after moving to Israel – would help him in his chosen career, according to Nissim Otmazgin, one of his former professors at Hebrew University.
Tech2Peace, an advocacy group training young Palestinians and Israelis and promoting dialogue between them, said Milgrim was an active volunteer who “brought people together with empathy and purpose.”
Milgrim was committed to helping LGBTQ+ Jews feel included, according to Joshua Maxey, executive director of Bet Mishpachah, a synagogue in Washington that is welcoming to the LGBTQ+ community and that Milgrim attended.
‘WE STAND STRONG’
Hours after the shooting, several people gathered at the scene, in the area of 3rd and F Streets.
Rabbi Levi Shemtov said the couple had attended his Washington synagogue occasionally.
“It’s very sad to see that instead of these people coming to the ultimate celebration of their life – they were about to get engaged – they get shot dead in the street just because of who they are,” the rabbi said.
The museum event for young diplomats was hosted by the American Jewish Committee, an advocacy group that supports Israel and confronts antisemitism, according to its website.
The head of the American Jewish Committee, Ted Deutch, told CNN the Jewish community around the world felt under threat. Some Israelis said the shooting made them afraid to go abroad.
Rights advocates have noted both rising anti-Jewish and anti-Arab hate incidents in the U.S.
(Reporting by Jasper Ward, Emily Rose, Andrew Goudsward, Julia Harte, Joseph Tanfani, Karen Freifeld, Ryan Patrick Jones, Daniel Trotta, Matt Spetalnick and Doina Chiacu; Additional reporting by Hatem Maher and James Mackenzie in Jerusalem, Tom Polansek in Chicago and Rachel More in Berlin; Writing by Raju Gopalakrishnan, Philippa Fletcher and Joseph Ax; Editing by Edwina Gibbs, Alex Richardson and Howard Goller)
