JERUSALEM – Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday said he had ordered stepped-up security measures at Israeli diplomatic missions worldwide after a gunman who shouted “free Palestine” shot dead two embassy staff outside a Jewish museum in Washington.
Foreign minister Gideon Saar attributed the killings to a wave of anti-Semitic and anti-Israel “incitement”, saying European governments were also to blame.
Netanyahu said he had issued instructions “to enhance security arrangements at Israeli missions around the world, and to increase protection for state representatives”.
“We are witnessing the terrible price of anti-Semitism and the wild incitement against the state of Israel,” he added.
Gunfire broke out late on Wednesday outside the Capital Jewish Museum in the centre of Washington as the venue held a social event for young professionals and diplomatic staff.
A video clip circulating on social media showed a young bearded man in a jacket and white shirt shouting “free, free Palestine” as he was led away by police.
The victims were a young couple who planned to get married, according to the Israeli ambassador to the United States, Yechiel Leiter.
The foreign ministry identified them as Yaron Lischinsky, an Israeli citizen, and Sarah Lynn Milgrim, an American.
“There is a direct line connecting anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli incitement to this murder,” foreign minister Saar told a press conference yesterday.
“This incitement is also done by leaders and officials of many countries and international organisations, especially from Europe.”
Israel has come under increasing diplomatic pressure in recent days, particularly from European countries, over its conduct of the war in Gaza and the dire humanitarian situation there.
Saar said flags at the ministry’s headquarters and at missions around the world would fly at half-mast, adding that Israel “will not surrender to terrorism”.
President Isaac Herzog said he was “devastated” by the deaths, but Israel and the United States would “stand united in defence of our people”.
“This is a despicable act of hatred, of anti-Semitism, which has claimed the lives of two young employees of the Israeli embassy,” Herzog said, adding: “Terror and hate will not break us.”
Far-right members of Netanyahu’s government also responded, with finance minister Bezalel Smotrich linking the shooting to “the same burning anti-Semitic hatred” that fuelled the October 2023 Hamas attack, which triggered the Gaza war.
“For thousands of years, the people of Israel have faced attempts to annihilate us,” he said on Telegram. “They have not succeeded – and they never will.”
National security minister Itamar Ben Gvir accused domestic critics of the Gaza war of fuelling anti-Semitism abroad.
“Regrettably, anti-Semites around the world draw encouragement from vile politicians within Israel, who accuse IDF soldiers of killing children for sport. The blood of the victims is on their hands,” he said on Telegram.
The comments were an apparent reference to left-wing politician Yair Golan, who sparked controversy earlier this week for suggesting Israel was on its way “to becoming a pariah state”, and that “a sane country… does not kill babies for a hobby”.
Yesterday, Golan said on X it was actually Netanyahu’s right-wing government that was “fuelling anti-Semitism and hatred toward Israel, resulting in unprecedented diplomatic isolation and danger to every Jew across the globe”.
– Nampa/AFP