Police arrested man from Chicago, named as Elias Rodriguez, who was filmed shouting “free, free Palestine” while being taken into custody at the museum. He was due to appear in a Washington court on Friday AEST.
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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu criticised British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and French President Emmanuel Macron, who this week threatened Israel with sanctions over its latest offensives in Gaza and stressed the importance of establishing a Palestinian state.
Australia and other western allies did not join that tripartite statement, which was welcomed by Hamas as “a significant step in the right direction”.
In a video about the Washington murders, Netanyahu accused Starmer, Carney and Macron of buying into Hamas’ propaganda and emboldening the terrorist group to continue fighting forever.
“When mass murderers, rapists, baby killers and kidnappers thank you, you’re on the wrong side of justice, you’re on the wrong side of humanity, and you’re on the wrong side of history,” he said.
A Palestinian state would not be free of Hamas, Netanyahu warned. “When you establish a Palestinian state – we’ve seen it – the radicals take over. Iran sends them in and they take over. So don’t give us this talk, ‘it’ll be a peaceful Palestinian state’. It won’t be.”
Crime scene tape is stretched across the front of a building where shooting suspect Elias Rodriguez lived.Credit: Getty Images
Returning to the scene of the shooting in central Washington on Thursday morning, Leiter struck a similar tone and singled out Macron for criticism.
“We had our people slaughtered [on October 7] – it’s not going to happen again. Hamas has to be destroyed, will be destroyed, the very same way the Nazis were destroyed,” he said.
“These are new Nazis, we’re going to defeat them. Antisemitism is on the rise not because of Israel’s responding, but because of countries like France who under this circumstance, now, tomorrow, plan to propose the unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state.”
Mourners laid flowers outside the Capital Jewish Museum on Thursday, Washington time.Credit: AP
Meanwhile, the FBI raided a property in Chicago associated with Rodriguez. A sign, “justice for Wadea” was in the window, referring to the stabbing murder of six-year-old Palestinian-American Wadea al-Fayoume in Illinois a week after the October 7 attack.
A manifesto surfaced online signed by an individual identifying themselves as Elias Rodriguez. The document was posted to X after the shooting but before Rodriguez was publicly identified by police.
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Authorities have not commented on the veracity of the manifesto, which implored readers to “escalate for Gaza” and “bring the war home”.
Politicians and members of the public laid flowers at the scene of the deadly shooting on Thursday, just blocks from DC police and FBI headquarters.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said President Donald Trump was saddened and outraged by the shooting, had spoken conveyed his support for Israel and the Jewish people directly to Netanyahu.
“This evil of antisemitism must be eradicated from our society,” she said.
A sign calling for justice for Wadea hangs in the window of an apartment reported to be Rodriguez’sCredit: Getty Images
Deborah Lipstadt, who served as the US special envoy for monitoring and combatting antisemitism under Joe Biden, said whatever the origins of the chant “free Palestine”, it had now become a slogan of hate.
“I think there’s no question – whatever its initial intent, and whatever people were saying initially or meant, it has become a call for violence,” she told CNN. “And not violence against Israelis, which is wrong, but violence gainst Jews.”
The war in Gaza began when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel on October 7, 2023, killing some 1200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting 251 others. The militants are still holding 58 captives, about a third of whom are believed to be alive, after most of the rest were returned in ceasefire agreements or other deals.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive, which has destroyed large swaths of Gaza, has killed more than 53,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants in its count.
