This attack comes at a time when Israel ramped up its offensive in the Gaza Strip, and as food security experts have warned that Gaza risks falling into famine unless Israel's blockade ends.
Two staff members of the Israeli Embassy in Washington were fatally shot on May 21 while leaving an event at a Jewish museum while the suspect reportedly yelled, "Free, free Palestine". The shooter identified as Elias Rodriguez was arrested by the police later.
This attack comes at a time when Israel ramped up its offensive in the Gaza Strip, and as food security experts have warned that Gaza risks falling into famine unless Israel's blockade ends.
The two victims, a man and a woman, were leaving an event at the Capital Jewish Museum around 9:15 p.m. Wednesday when the suspect approached a group of four people and opened fire, Metropolitan Police Chief Pamela Smith said at 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.
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.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar identified the victims as Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim.
Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Yechiel Leiter said the young couple was about to be engaged, saying the man had purchased a ring this week with the intent to propose next week in Jerusalem.
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.
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 바카라” lands Israel captured in the 1967 war. However, the peace process between the sides has been stalled for years.
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.