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A couple, who were both staff members at the Israeli Embassy, were killed in a shooting near the Capital Jewish Museum in Northwest D.C. on Wednesday night.
Yaron Lischinsky, 30, and Sarah Lynn Milgrim, 26, were leaving an event at the museum when police said a suspect shot and killed the couple.
The shooting occurred near the museum in the 500 block of 3rd Street NW around 9:10 p.m. where an event, the Young Diplomats Reception for young Jewish professionals, was held. The museum is located steps away from the FBI’s Washington Field Office.
D.C. Police Chief Pamela Smith said at a news conference late Wednesday night a man, now identified as 30-year-old Elias Rodriguez, of Chicago, “approached a group of four people, produced a handgun and opened fire,” striking the couple.
She added that Rodriguez then entered the museum and chanted “Free, free Palestine!”
Rodriguez was detained by museum security personnel and confessed to the crime. A weapon was recovered from the scene.
According to Smith, Rodriguez was observed pacing outside the museum before the shooting.
Rodriguez was charged with murder and several firearm offenses on Thursday. U.S. Attorney for D.C. Jeanine Pirro said at a news conference on Thursday that officials will “continue to investigate this as a hate crime and a crime of terrorism.”
Days away from proposal, ‘beautiful couple’ is shot dead
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar said Lischinsky was a research assistant, and Milgrim organized visits and missions to Israel.
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser said at the news conference that the District government “will not tolerate this violence or hate in our city. We will not tolerate any acts of terrorism, and we’re going to stand together as a community in the coming days and weeks to send a clear message that we will not tolerate antisemitism.”
Ted Deutch, the CEO of the American Jewish Committee, the organization holding Wednesday night’s event, said in a statement on X: “We are devastated that an unspeakable act of violence took place outside the venue.”
He added that while the organization waited for more information, “our attention and our hearts are solely with those who were harmed and their families.”
Israel’s ambassador to the United States, Yechiel “Michael” Leiter, described through tears that the couple that was killed were planning to get married. Lischinsky had just purchased an engagement ring with plans to propose in Jerusalem in a couple of days.
“They were a beautiful couple who came to enjoy an evening in Washington’s cultural center,” he said.
Leiter added that President Donald Trump contacted him to tell him “his administration is going to do everything it can possibly do to fight and end antisemitism and the hatred that’s being directed, the demonization and delegitimization of the State of Israel.”
‘Our worst nightmare, come to reality’
Early Thursday morning, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said 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.
Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, called the shooting “depraved act of anti-Semitic terrorism.”
“We are confident that the US authorities will take strong action against those responsible for this criminal act. Israel will continue to act resolutely to protect its citizens and representatives — everywhere in the world,” Danon wrote in a post on X.
Ron Halber, chief executive officer of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington, called the shooting “a human tragedy.”
“Two young people, gunned down for now reason, as they were getting ready to start their lives together as a married couple, simply because they were Israeli and Jewish,” Halber said in an interview with WTOP. “It’s our worst nightmare, come to reality.”
Halber believes the current political tone played a role: “When people in political leadership and other things start using words like ‘ethnic cleaning,’ which is disgusting, and combined with anti-Semitism feeds this self-radicalization of individuals who become motivated to commit acts of violence. When we discuss the Middle East, we have to do so in nuanced and measured language, not in hyperbole, and not in language that becomes alarmist.”
“It’s fair to criticize Israel or any other country,” Halber said, but suggesting the U.S. government must do more: “By making sure that anti-Semitic rhetoric has no place in American society, by denouncing anti-Israel rhetoric that goes too far, and by providing the desperately needed funds for institutions to secure themselves.”
Israel’s campaign in Gaza
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 with his hands behind his back.
The war in the Gaza Strip 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.
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.
Below is a map of where the shooting occurred:
WTOP’s Alan Etter reported live from the scene. WTOP’s Jessica Kronzer, Jose Umana, Neal Augenstein, Will Vitka and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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