Terrorist who murdered Israeli Embassy staffers could get death penalty

A 31-year-old man from Chicago, Elias Rodriguez, shot and killed two Israeli Embassy staff members, Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim, outside of the Capital Jewish Museum.

By Vered Weiss, World Israel News

Interim US Attorney for D.C. Jeanine Pirro declared that Elias Rodriguez, the man arrested for killing two Jewish diplomats on Wednesday, may faced the death penalty if convicted.

The 31-year-old man from Chicago shot and killed two Israeli Embassy staff members, Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim, outside of the Capital Jewish Museum.

The couple were preparing to become engaged, according to reports.

Rodriguez was charged with two counts of first-degree murder, murder of foreign officials, and multiple firearm-related offenses.

The suspected terrorists showed significant premeditation by taking a firearm from Illinois to D.C., buying a ticket for the event, and attending before opening fire.

As he shot at the attendees, Rodriguez yelled anti-Israel and pro-Hamas slogans.

“I did it, I did it for Gaza. Free Palestine,” witnesses say Rodriguez yelled as he was being arrested.

Rodriguez wore a keffiyeh before the shooting but later took it off to avoid arousing suspicion.

He also said that he admired a protester who self-immolated outside the Israeli Embassy in 2024.

The FBI is investigating the killing as a hate crime and a terrorist act.

In addition, Rodriguez wrote a manifesto declaring that the inspiration for his crime was his anger at Israel.

The murder of Lischinsky and Milgrim has sparked global outrage and highlights the problem of antisemitism.

Rodriguez is being held in custody and his court hearing is scheduled for June 18.

In the letter attributed to Rodriguez, he accuses “the Israelis” of trying to “exterminate the Palestinians,” dubbing Israel “the genocidal apartheid state.”

The manifesto also criticizes the U.S. government as well as “Western and Arab government complicity.”

Rodriguez seemed to justify his terrorist plans, arguing that both the “perpetrators” and the “abettors” of the alleged genocide in Gaza have lost their humanity.

“A word about the morality of armed demonstration. Those of us against the genocide take satisfaction in arguing that the perpetrators and abettors have forfeited their humanity,” he said.

“Humanity doesn’t exempt one from accountability. The action would have been morally justified taken 11 years ago during Protective Edge, around the time I personally became acutely aware of our brutal conduct in Palestine. But I think to most Americans such an action would have been illegible, would seem insane. I am glad that today at least there are many Americans for which the action will be highly legible and, in some funny way, the only sane thing to do,” he wrote.