Two Israeli embassy employees were killed in front of a Jewish museum in the city center of Washington DC by a man who, according to the police, cried “free and free” after the attack.
The victims, a young couple, were killed during an event in capital Jewish Museum, said DC police, adding that the incident seems targeted.
The shooting occurred at 9:05 p.m. local time (01:05 GMT) in an area with many tourist sites, museums and government buildings, including the FBI Washington field office.
After the suspect, who was arrested by the authorities, opened fire, he walked inside the museum and was arrested by security, said the head of the Metropolitan Police Department Pamela Smith.
The suspect, Elias Rodriguez, 30, of Chicago, was seen taking steps in the museum before opening fire on a group of four – killing the couple, said chief Smith at a press conference.
Police “had no previous interaction” with the suspect, she added.
“We do not see anything in its history that would have placed it on our radar.”
The Israeli ambassador to the United States Yechiel Leiter shared at the conference that the couple killed had planned to get engaged.
Leiter said that the male victim had bought a ring this week and had planned to offer during a trip they had planned in Jerusalem. The names of the victims were not released.
“We heard gunshots, then a guy came to really look in distress. We thought he needed help,” Katie Kalisher’s eyewitness told the BBC, referring to the suspect.
President Donald Trump suggested that killings were motivated by anti -Semitism.
“These horrible DC killings, obviously based on anti-Semitism, must end, now! Hatred and radicalism have no place in the United States,” he wrote on the Truth social platform.
In an article on X, the American Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, said: “We will find the officials and translate them into justice”.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said security in Israeli embassies around the world would be intensified after the shooting.
“My heart hurts for the families of the young man and a beloved woman, whose life was interrupted by a heinous anti-Semitic murderer,” he said.
“We are witnessing the terrible price of anti -Semitism and wild incentive against the State of Israel.”
The incident sparked a major police response and closed several basic streets of the city.
The spokesperson for the Israeli embassy Tal Naim Cohen confirmed that two staff members had been slaughtered “at close range”.
The embassy had “full faith” that the authorities “would protect the Jewish representatives and communities of Israel in the United States,” he said.
The Israeli ambassador was not during the museum event at the time of the shooting, the American media reported.
Jojo Kalin, member of the board of directors of the American Jewish Committee who helped organize the event, said that she had not witnessed the shooting but felt a “feeling of guilt” on what happened.
“I will not lose my humanity on this subject or be dissuaded. And that the Israelis and the Palestinians always deserve self -determination and [it is] Just deeply ironic that this is what we are talking about, “she said.
The DC campus of the University of Georgetown was also temporarily locked, according to CBS.
“When we went to leave the cops and security were below and told us that we cannot leave,” said a student, who was locking in their building for more than an hour.
Capital Jewish Museum, like many other Jewish institutions in the United States, has struggled to increase safety problems in an increase in anti-Semitism.
“Jewish institutions throughout the city, throughout the country, are concerned about security due to certain very frightening incidents with which certain institutions have been confronted and because of a climate of anti -Semitism”, the executive director Beatrice Gurwitz told NBC News In a separate report before Wednesday’s attack.
The museum recently received a subsidy to improve its security in part, she said, due to a new exhibition on LGBT pride.
“We recognize that there are also threats that are also associated with it,” said Gurwitz. “And once again, we want to make sure that our space is as welcoming and secure for all those who come here while we explore these stories.”
The American ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee posted on X to call the attack an “horrible act of terror that the people of Israel wakes up this morning”.
