Two staff mem­bers of the Is­raeli Em­bassy in Wash­ing­ton were shot and killed Wednes­day evening while leav­ing an event at a Jew­ish mu­se­um, and the sus­pect yelled, “Free, free Pales­tine” af­ter he was ar­rest­ed, po­lice said.

Is­raeli For­eign Min­is­ter Gideon Saar iden­ti­fied the vic­tims as Yaron Lischin­sky and Sarah Mil­grim. Lischin­sky was a re­search as­sis­tant, and Mil­grim or­ga­nized vis­its and mis­sions to Is­rael.

They were leav­ing an event at the Cap­i­tal Jew­ish Mu­se­um when the sus­pect ap­proached a group of four peo­ple and opened fire, Met­ro­pol­i­tan Po­lice Chief Pamela Smith said at a news con­fer­ence.

The sus­pect, iden­ti­fied as Elias Ro­driguez, 31, of Chica­go, 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 stun­ning at­tack prompt­ed Is­raeli mis­sions to beef up their se­cu­ri­ty. The shoot­ing comes as Is­rael has launched an­oth­er ma­jor of­fen­sive in the Gaza Strip in a war with Hamas that has height­ened ten­sions across the Mid­dle East and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly.

“These hor­ri­ble D.C. killings, based ob­vi­ous­ly on an­ti­semitism, must end, NOW!” Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump post­ed on so­cial me­dia ear­ly Thurs­day. “Ha­tred and Rad­i­cal­ism have no place in the USA.”

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 Am­bas­sador to the U.S. Yechiel Leit­er said the two peo­ple killed were a young cou­ple 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.

At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Pam Bon­di said she was at the scene with for­mer judge Jea­nine Pir­ro, who serves as the U.S. at­tor­ney in Wash­ing­ton and whose of­fice would pros­e­cute the case.

The state­ment from Ne­tanyahu’s of­fice said he spoke to Bon­di, who told him Trump was “in­volved in man­ag­ing the in­ci­dent” and the U.S. would bring the per­pe­tra­tor to jus­tice.

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.

Dan Bongi­no, deputy di­rec­tor of the FBI, wrote in a post on so­cial me­dia that “ear­ly in­di­ca­tors are that this is an act of tar­get­ed vi­o­lence.”

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, 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, sparked a hunger cri­sis and oblit­er­at­ed vast swaths of Gaza’s ur­ban land­scape.

‘In cold blood’

The vi­o­lence oc­curred fol­low­ing the Amer­i­can Jew­ish Com­mit­tee’s an­nu­al Young Diplo­mats re­cep­tion at the mu­se­um.

“This is a shock­ing act of vi­o­lence and our com­mu­ni­ty is hold­ing each oth­er tighter tonight,” Ted Deutch, Amer­i­can Jew­ish Com­mit­tee’s chief ex­ec­u­tive, said in a state­ment ear­ly Thurs­day. “At this painful mo­ment, we mourn with the vic­tims’ fam­i­lies, loved ones, and all of Is­rael. May their mem­o­ries be for a bless­ing.”

Yoni Kalin and Katie Kalish­er were in­side the mu­se­um when they heard gun­shots and a man came in­side look­ing dis­tressed, they said. Kalin said peo­ple came to his aid and brought him wa­ter, think­ing he need­ed help, with­out re­al­iz­ing he was the sus­pect. When po­lice ar­rived, he pulled out a red kef­fiyeh and re­peat­ed­ly yelled, “Free Pales­tine,’” Kalin said.

“This event was about hu­man­i­tar­i­an aid,” Kalin said. “How can we ac­tu­al­ly help both the peo­ple in Gaza and the peo­ple in Is­rael? How can we bring to­geth­er Mus­lims and Jews and Chris­tians to work to­geth­er to ac­tu­al­ly help in­no­cent peo­ple? And then here he is just mur­der­ing two peo­ple in cold blood.”

Last week, the Cap­i­tal Jew­ish Mu­se­um was one of the lo­cal non­prof­its in Wash­ing­ton award­ed fund­ing from a $500,000 grant pro­gram to in­crease its se­cu­ri­ty. The mu­se­um’s lead­ers were con­cerned be­cause it is a Jew­ish or­ga­ni­za­tion and due to its new LGBTQ ex­hib­it, ac­cord­ing to NBC4 Wash­ing­ton.

“We rec­og­nize that there are threats as­so­ci­at­ed with this as well,” Ex­ec­u­tive Di­rec­tor Beat­rice Gur­witz told the TV sta­tion. “And again, we want to en­sure that our space is as wel­com­ing and se­cure for every­body who comes here while we are ex­plor­ing these sto­ries.”

In re­sponse to the shoot­ing, the mu­se­um said in a state­ment that they are “deeply sad­dened and hor­ri­fied by the sense­less vi­o­lence out­side the Mu­se­um this evening.”

The Jew­ish Fed­er­a­tion of Greater Wash­ing­ton CEO Gil Preuss said in a state­ment that he was hor­ri­fied by the shoot­ing and mourned the loss of the two peo­ple killed.

“Our hearts are with their fam­i­lies and loved ones, and with all of those who are im­pact­ed by this trag­ic act of an­ti­se­mit­ic vi­o­lence,” he said.

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.

The sto­ry has been up­dat­ed to cor­rect the sus­pect’s age to 31 from 30, based on up­dat­ed in­for­ma­tion from law en­force­ment.

As­so­ci­at­ed Press writ­ers Alan­na Durkin Rich­er, Hal­lie Gold­en and Jon Gam­brell con­tributed.

By MAYA SWEEDLER

WASH­ING­TON (AP)