Israel’s foreign minister Gideon Saar blamed European criticism of his country’s stepped-up Gaza offensive, claiming “a direct line connecting anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli incitement to this murder.”
French foreign ministry spokesman Christophe Lemoine called the accusation “completely outrageous and completely unjustified.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu cited “the terrible price of anti-Semitism” and decried “wild incitement against the State of Israel.”
Israel identified the victims as Yaron Lischinsky, an Israeli citizen, and Sarah Lynn Milgrim, a US employee of the embassy, and said they were a couple planning to marry.
- 'Free Palestine' -
Rodriguez was charged Thursday with two counts of first-degree murder, murder of foreign officials and firearms offenses, a criminal complaint filed in federal court in Washington showed.
Tensions have risen in the United States and many other countries over the ongoing Israeli assault on Gaza, with pro-Palestinian activists decrying what they say is the intolerable human cost of the military offensive.
But Netanyahu on Thursday accused France, Britain and Canada of emboldening militants, saying “they want Israel to stand down and accept that Hamas’s army of mass murderers will survive, rebuild and repeat the October 7 massacre.”
- 'Anti-Semitism, I feel it every day' -
“We have to find a better way to a better future for Israelis, for Palestinians, for American Jews, for Muslims, for all of us,“ said Hadar Susskind, head of the progressive New Jewish Narrative group.
Israeli Ambassador Yechiel Leiter told reporters at the scene Thursday that he rejected any “insinuation that anti-Semitism is rising because of Israel’s defense of its country. Hamas declared war, Israel is responding.”
“They sat him down. ‘Are you OK? Were you shot? What happened?’ And he’s like ‘Somebody call the cops’,“ Yoni Kalin, who was in the museum, told US media.
The targeted event was an annual reception hosted by the American Jewish Committee (AJC) for young Jewish professionals and the Washington diplomatic community.
Lischinsky was Christian, according to The Times of Israel, for whom he had previously worked as a blogger. He also held a German passport.
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