Suspect faces death penalty in killing of 2 Israeli Embassy staffers in D.C.

Federal authorities on Thursday said the man accused of gunning down two Israeli Embassy staffers and shouting, “Free, Free Palestine,” during his arrest faces first-degree murder charges that could bring the death penalty.

Jeanine Pirro, interim U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, shared the initial charges against Elias Rodriguez. Federal officials said Mr. Rodriguez fatally shot a man and a woman outside the Capital Jewish Museum late Wednesday as they were leaving an event.

“This is a horrific crime,” Ms. Pirro said during a press conference downtown. “A young couple at the beginning of their life’s journey, about to be engaged in another country, had their bodies removed in the cold of the night in a foreign city in a body bag.”

Federal court documents said Mr. Rodriguez told responding officers at the scene that he “did it for Palestine, I did it for Gaza, I am unarmed.”

He was holding a kaffiyeh, the traditional Arabic scarf often associated with anti-Israel activists, when Metropolitan Police officers handcuffed him.

Ms. Pirro, who was just sworn in last week, said investigators were working to produce enough evidence to justify hate crime and terrorism charges. She said, “Antisemitism will not be tolerated, especially in the nation’s capital.”

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“This is the kind of case that picks at old sores and old scars, because these kinds of cases remind us of what has happened in the past that we can never — and must never — forget,” Ms. Pirro said.

Authorities said Mr. Rodriguez faces an additional charge of murder of a foreign official in the death of 30-year-old Yaron Lischinsky.

Ms. Pirro said Mr. Lischinsky was an Israeli citizen in the U.S. on official state business. He was with his girlfriend, 26-year-old Sarah Milgrim of Kansas, when they were fatally shot around 9:10 p.m.

Israeli Ambassador Yechiel Leiter said late Wednesday that Mr. Lischinsky had purchased an engagement ring and was days away from proposing to Ms. Milgrim in Jerusalem.

Police said Mr. Rodriguez was pacing around outside the museum before the fatal encounter.

After the shooting, authorities said, he tossed his gun and entered the museum, where security detained him.

Mr. Rodriguez told police he “did it,” according to court documents, and chanted, “Free, Free Palestine.”

“Sadly, we have had practice standing together as a community to fight antisemitism, both in hate speech and in hateful acts,” D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser said at the press conference. “In this moment, we stand shoulder to shoulder as one community, united in love but also committed to justice.”

Court documents said Mr. Rodriguez, a 31-year-old Chicago resident, legally purchased the weapon in his home state in 2020. He declared that he had a firearm in his luggage when he flew Tuesday from Chicago to Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.

Mr. Rodriguez also faces weapons charges in connection with the shooting.

Prosecutors said Mr. Rodriguez went before a judge while officials were holding the press conference. He will be kept behind bars and is due back in court on June 18.

Steven Jensen, assistant director of the FBI’s Washington field office, said federal investigators were trying to determine whether Mr. Rodriguez was connected to an alleged manifesto and a social media account, both full of pro-Hamas sentiments.

Mr. Jensen said Mr. Rodriguez came to the District of Columbia for a work-related conference, but he could not provide further details.

Metropolitan Police Chief Pamela A. Smith said more officers would be stationed around schools, synagogues and other buildings associated with the city’s Jewish community.

U.S. and Israeli leaders forcefully denounced the apparent antisemitic terrorist attack.

President Trump said the shooter was “obviously” motivated by the hatred of Jewish people. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said violence against Jews has become more common in the nearly 20 months since the Israel-Gaza war erupted.

The war began in October 2023 after Hamas killed more than 1,200 civilians in southern Israel and took 250 others hostage.

Israel’s counterattack on the Gaza Strip, the Hamas-governed enclave from where the Islamist terrorist group launched the attacks, has killed thousands of Palestinian civilians and prompted accusations in left-wing circles worldwide of genocide.

The Jewish state vehemently denies that claim and calls its deployment antisemitic.

“We are witnessing the terrible price of anti-Semitism and wild incitement against the State of Israel,” Mr. Netanyahu posted early Thursday on X. “The blood libels against the Jewish state are rising in blood — and they must be fought to the bitter end.”

The prime minister said extra security would be provided for Israeli state envoys and diplomatic missions.

Earlier Thursday, FBI agents in Chicago were seen raiding an apartment thought to be linked to Mr. Rodriguez, WLS-TV reported.

Independent journalist Ken Klippenstein obtained an alleged manifesto early Thursday.

The manifesto debates the value of an “armed action” and repeatedly calls Israel’s military campaign against Hamas a “genocide.”

“An armed action is not necessarily a military action. It usually is not. Usually it is theater and spectacle, a quality it shares with many unarmed actions,” the document reads. “The Israelis themselves boast about their own shock at the free hand the Americans have given them to exterminate the Palestinians.”

It discusses the “morality of armed demonstration” and how those who advocate for the Palestinians “take satisfaction in arguing that the perpetrators and abettors have forfeited their humanity.”

“I am glad that today at least there are many Americans for which the [armed] action will be highly legible and, in some funny way, the only sane thing to do,” the alleged manifesto reads.

The document concludes with the author sending his love to his parents and sister and the phrase “Free Palestine.” It is signed by Elias Rodriguez.

Mr. Rodriguez is a self-identified Marxist and has been involved in anti-Israel groups and other far-left causes.

He was a member of the Party for Socialism and Liberation, which accuses Israel of genocide in Gaza “with the full backing of the U.S. government.”

PSL said Mr. Rodriguez “had a brief association with one branch of the PSL that ended in 2017” and did not know of any contact with him in the past seven years.

“We have nothing to do with this shooting and do not support it,” the group said in a statement.

Mr. Rodriguez turned up at left-wing protests in 2017 and advocated for Laquan McDonald, who was fatally shot by Chicago police.

An X account reportedly connected to Mr. Rodriguez posted, “Escalate for Gaza, Bring the War Home,” on the day of the shooting. The same account shared pro-Hamas and antisemitic statements while calling for the removal of all Jews from Israel.

In January 2024, Mr. Rodriguez allegedly posted ”Happy New Year, Death To Israel” and “De@th 2 Amerikkka.” One post was removed because it violated the X site’s rules against violent language.

Right after the November presidential election, the X account linked to Mr. Rodriguez posted “Don’t Blame Me, I Voted For Hamas.” The account further praised Luigi Mangione, the man accused of fatally shooting UnitedHealthcare’s CEO in midtown Manhattan in December.

On May 19, Mr. Rodriguez’s alleged handle posted a screenshot of comments from another site in which the author describes becoming depressed as civilian deaths in Gaza mounted.

The American Osteopathic Information Association said Mr. Rodriguez was one of its employees and was “shocked and saddened to learn that an AOIA employee has been arrested as a suspect in this horrific crime.”

Mr. Leiter, the Israeli ambassador, said the Jewish people “won’t be afraid together. We’ll stand. We’re going to overcome the moral depravity of people who think that they’re going to achieve political gains through murder.”

Mr. Lischinsky was a research assistant at the Israeli Embassy. Ms. Milgrim helped organize U.S. mission trips to the Jewish state.

Ron Prosor, the Israeli ambassador to Germany, said Mr. Lischinsky was born in Nuremberg and was a “true lover of Israel.”

The ambassador said Mr. Lischinsky was a Christian who served in the Israel Defense Forces for three years. His LinkedIn profile says he moved to Israel when he was 16.

“He embodied the Judeo-Christian values and set an example for young people worldwide,” Mr. Prosor wrote on X. “I paid my condolences to his parents this morning.”

Ms. Milgrim had been doing public diplomacy work at the embassy since November 2023, according to her LinkedIn profile.

Before that, she worked in a Tel Aviv-based company, Tech2Peace. The company said it coaches young Palestinians and Israelis on discussing conflict and provides tech-based entrepreneurial training.

Ms. Milgrim’s father, Robert Milgrim, told the New York Post that his daughter dedicated her time at the Israeli Embassy to working with “peace-building groups” to bridge the divide between Israelis and Palestinians.

“Last night, she was attending an affair to figure out how to get more aid into Gaza,” Mr. Milgrim told the Post on Thursday. “The night she was killed, she was trying to help the situation — that’s the irony.”