The gathering at the Capital Jewish Museum was quintessential Washington — a nighttime reception hosted by a national advocacy group, bringing together young professionals and foreign diplomats in a neighborhood not far from the Capitol.
On the street outside, a man who looked like just another young Washingtonian in a blue jacket and a backpack was pacing back and forth.
As two young aides at the Israeli Embassy who were dating left the reception, he turned to face their backs and pulled a 9-millimeter handgun from his waistband, according to an F.B.I. affidavit that cited surveillance video. Then he shot them again and again, reloading his pistol, shooting even after they fell and as the young woman was trying to crawl away.
The gunman then went inside the museum, where guests thought he was a bystander who had fled the shooting, and someone offered him a glass of water. Moments later, when the police apprehended him, he let out a cry that has become familiar on college campuses and at protests around the world: “Free, free Palestine!”
The killings punctuated a moment of rising tension in the United States and around the world, as college campuses, European capitals and American politics have been transformed by anger over the deadly Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and Israel’s devastating bombing campaign in Gaza.
Across the world, offenses against Jewish people and property have increased sharply since the Hamas attacks and have remained at historically high levels as Israel has waged a military offensive and aid blockade that the Gaza Health Ministry says has killed more than 50,000 Palestinians and left the population on the brink of starvation.
Although almost all pro-Palestinian protests in the United States have been nonviolent, some critics, including the Trump administration and Israel, have accused protesters of stoking antisemitism and inciting violence against Jews. Many demonstrators and their supporters have said that such accusations are intended to suppress free speech and support for the Palestinian cause.
The gunman, identified by the police as Elias Rodriguez, 31, of Chicago, was charged by the Justice Department on Thursday with the murder of foreign officials, first-degree murder and other crimes.
But Jeanine Pirro, the interim U.S. attorney in Washington, said that “we’re going to continue to investigate this as a hate crime, and a crime of terrorism, and we will add additional charges as the evidence warrants.” She said the charges carried the possibility of the death penalty, but that it was too early to say whether prosecutors would pursue it.
At his arraignment in federal court on Thursday, Mr. Rodriguez, sitting calmly in a white jumpsuit with his hands folded in front of him, did not enter a plea.
The shooting, just after 9 p.m. on Wednesday, took place as guests were leaving an annual reception for young diplomats that was hosted by young professionals from the American Jewish Committee.
The victims were Yaron Lischinsky, who grew up in Israel and Germany, and Sarah Milgrim, who was from Prairie Village, Kan., a suburb of Kansas City. Mr. Lischinsky, 30, was a research assistant in the political department at the Israeli Embassy, and Ms. Milgrim, 26, organized trips to Israel. They were a couple, and Israel’s ambassador to the United States, Yechiel Leiter, said that Mr. Lischinsky bought an engagement ring this week and was about to propose to Ms. Milgrim in Jerusalem. They had plans to fly to Israel on Sunday.
Mr. Rodriguez, who worked for a trade group, the American Osteopathic Information Association, had a history of pro-Palestinian activism. A statement posted to his account on the social media site X on Wednesday evening under the title “Escalate For Gaza, Bring The War Home,” condemned both the Israeli and American governments and what he called atrocities committed by the Israeli military against Palestinians. The post did not refer directly to the shooting on Wednesday evening, but it justified “armed action.” Mr. Rodriguez had also posted video from a pro-Palestinian march in Chicago on X in 2023.
Mr. Rodriguez bought the gun in Illinois in 2020, the F.B.I. affidavit said. He flew from Chicago to Reagan National Airport on Tuesday, transporting the gun in his checked bag and declaring it. He told the police he bought a ticket to the reception at the museum several hours before it began, according to the affidavit.
After his arrest, the affidavit said, he “expressed admiration” for Aaron Bushnell, an active-duty U.S. airman who repeatedly shouted, “Free Palestine!” as he set his body on fire and killed himself outside the Israeli Embassy in Washington in February 2024.
On Thursday, federal agents descended on Mr. Rodriguez’s apartment in Albany Park, on Chicago’s Northwest Side, where there were two signs in the window. One read “Justice for Wadea,” a reference to a 6-year-old Palestinian American boy who was killed in Chicago two years ago in an attack motivated by anti-Muslim hate. Another sign in the window read “Tikkun Olam means free Palestine.” (Tikkun Olam is a Hebrew phrase that means “repairing the world.”)
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel said Mr. Rodriguez’s cry of “free Palestine” was “exactly the same chant we heard on Oct. 7” of 2023, when Hamas-led gunmen killed 1,200 people in Israel and took another 250 back to Gaza as hostages.
President Trump wrote on his social media platform that “these horrible D.C. killings, based obviously on antisemitism, must end, NOW!”
The shooting appeared to echo a series of attacks involving Israeli diplomatic outposts around the world over the last 19 months of the war in Gaza.
Last summer, Molotov cocktails were thrown at Israeli Embassies in Mexico City and Bucharest, Romania. A man wielding a crossbow attacked the Israeli Embassy in Belgrade, Serbia, last June. An attacker opened fire on the Israeli Consulate in Munich in September, and two months later grenades were detonated near the Israeli Embassy in Copenhagen.
Groups that monitor hate crimes said the Hamas attack and the subsequent war in Gaza had helped fuel tens of thousands of antisemitic incidents around the world, including cases of verbal abuse, attacks on social media, Nazi-themed vandalism and violence.
There has been an increase in hate crimes against other groups as well, experts say. But the increase in anti-Jewish incidents has far outpaced that of those targeting every other group, according to researchers who compile the statistics.
That has left many Jews around the world rattled and feeling unsafe. Israeli officials have at times warned members of the public to avoid showing Israeli and Jewish symbols, lest they become potential targets.
Michael Herzog, who served as Israel’s ambassador to the United States from late 2021 until January, said the attack had not “come as a surprise” to him.
The embassy staff had felt constantly under threat since Oct. 7, 2023, Mr. Herzog said in an interview. Citing large pro-Palestinian protests that had taken place outside the embassy and the ambassador’s residence, he said he had felt it was only a matter of time until “a brainwashed person might pick up a weapon and carry out a shooting attack.”
Several American organizations that have conducted demonstrations quickly condemned the shooting on Thursday. “We are grounded first and foremost in the belief that all human life is precious, which is precisely why we are struggling for a world in which all people can live in safety and dignity,” said Jewish Voice for Peace, a group that regularly protests Israel’s conduct in Gaza.
In Israel, the shooting set off finger-pointing among politicians, several of whom were quick to accuse their opponents of being indirectly responsible for the anti-Israel climate that they said had precipitated the shooting. Some argued that Mr. Netanyahu’s policies were stoking anti-Israel sentiment abroad, while others blamed his left-wing critics.
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, for “fueling antisemitism and hatred of Israel.”
Itamar Ben-Gvir, the far-right national security minister, suggested that leftist politicians who oppose the war — like Mr. Golan — had encouraged the shooting by making statements critical of Israeli policies.
“The blood of the victims is on their hands,” Mr. Ben-Gvir wrote on social media.
Outside the Capitol Jewish Museum on Thursday, there were signs of grief and solace. A visitor placed a makeshift shrine with a pair of tea lights on a square paper plate covered by plastic cups with the names “Sarah” and “Yaron” printed on them.
Kneeling behind yellow police tape, volunteers from Misaskim, a Jewish group that supports grieving families, collected remains and blood from the sidewalk in accordance with the Jewish custom of burying the body whole. The practice was once a familiar sight in Israel, after bombings at cafes and on buses during past Palestinian uprisings.
“They’re there cleaning up, to keep the honor for the deceased,” said Meyer Weill, the president and a founder of Misaskim, which is based in Brooklyn. “The same way God gave us the body is the same way he wants the body back.”
Glenn Thrush reported from Washington, Michael D. Shear from London, and Maggie Haberman and Michael Levenson from New York. Reporting was contributed by Aaron Boxerman, Darren Sands, Isabel Kershner, Julie Bosman, Aric Toler, Robert Chiarito, Chris Cameron, Zach Montague and Mitch Smith.
Glenn Thrush covers the Department of Justice for The Times and has also written about gun violence, civil rights and conditions in the country’s jails and prisons.
Maggie Haberman is a White House correspondent for The Times, reporting on President Trump.
Michael D. Shear is a White House correspondent for The Times. He has reported on politics for more than 30 years.
Michael Levenson covers breaking news for The Times from New York.
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