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The suspect accused of gunning down two Israeli embassy staffers outside a Jewish museum in Washington was charged Thursday with murder, as international tensions over anti-Semitism erupted over the attack.Elias Rodriguez, 31, shouted “Free Palestine” as he was taken away by police after the shooting late Wednesday outside the Capital Jewish Museum, prosecutors said in a court document. “I did it for Palestine, I did it for Gaza,” he told the officers.The Chicago man made an initial court appearance Thursday after being charged with two counts of first-degree murder and murder of foreign officials. If convicted, he could receive the death penalty.Authorities were investigating the shooting “as an act of terrorism and as a hate crime,” Jeanine Pirro, interim US attorney for the District of Columbia, told reporters.”I suspect as we go forward… that there will be more charges added,” she said, noting that a preliminary hearing was set for June 18.The shooting triggered international outrage and finger-pointing as 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.””This incitement is also done by leaders and officials of many countries and international organizations, especially from Europe,” he said.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.”Soon after the shooting, President Donald Trump — who spoke with Netanyahu on Thursday — posted on social media that the attack was clearly anti-Semitic.The killings took place outside the Capital Jewish Museum, located a mile (1.6 kilometers) from the White House, following a social event hosted by the American Jewish Committee for young Jewish professionals and the Washington diplomatic community.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.- ‘Mass murderers’ -The attack came days after the museum was awarded a grant to boost security, as anti-Semitism surges worldwide in the wake of Israel’s devastating invasion of Gaza, prompted by the October 7, 2023 attack by Palestinian militant group Hamas.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.Britain and France — who have stepped up their criticism of Israel’s actions — were among those condemning the shooting, as well as Germany and the United Arab Emirates.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’ – Police said Rodriguez was seen pacing outside the museum before the shooting around 9:00 pm (0100 GMT Thursday).According to court documents, Rodriguez approached his victims, who were facing away from him, and fired 21 rounds. He shot multiple times at the couple after they were already on the ground and fired at Milgram as she tried to crawl away.Witnesses said security personnel at first mistook the gunman for a victim of the shooting and allowed him into the museum, where he was initially comforted by bystanders.”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.Lischinsky was a researcher at the Israeli embassy, while Milgrim worked for its public diplomacy department, according to their LinkedIn profiles.On Thursday, mourners gathered at the museum in Washington to sing and pray.”Obviously the war is awful,” mourner Gil Livni told AFP. “(But) anti-Semitism, I feel it every day… people that I thought were my friends showing that they are anti-Semitic. It’s become the norm.”Hadar Susskind, president and CEO of New Jewish Narrative, described the moment as “unbelievably painful … this cannot be the answer.” bur-st-sms-nl/des

Before they were killed by a gunman outside a Washington Jewish museum, Yaron Lischinsky had planned to make a formal proposal of marriage to Sarah Milgrim in Jerusalem next week.As their deaths late Wednesday intensify the international spotlight on the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, here is what we know about the two Israeli embassy staffers shot dead after attending a networking event for young professionals.- Yaron Lischinsky -The 30-year-old had worked as a researcher at the Israeli embassy in Washington since 2022. He was born in Nuremburg, Germany and moved to Israel at the age of 16 and had dual nationality.Lischinsky studied at Reichman University in Tel Aviv and Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Ron Prosor, the Israeli ambassador in Berlin, described Lischinsky as a “brilliant” and “curious” student when he taught him at Reichman. Nissim Otmazgin, a humanities professor at Hebrew University, said the slain man had dreamed of becoming a diplomat.Lischinsky spoke fluent German, according to the German-Israeli Friendship Society. Volker Beck, the society president, said Lischinsky’s “interest in German-Israeli relations and ways to achieve peaceful coexistence in the Middle East brightened the environment around him.” He met Sarah Milgrim when she started working at the Israeli mission. According to Yechiel Leiter, Israel’s ambassador in Washington, Lischinsky had bought a ring. The couple planned to fly to Jerusalem on Sunday to meet his family and Lischinsky was to propose there next week.  – Sarah Milgrim -The LinkedIn photo of 26-year-old Sarah Milgrim showed a smiling woman with curly red hair standing between Israeli and US flags. She had worked in the public diplomacy section at the embassy in Washington since 2023.Milgrim was a leading choir member at her school near Kansas City and earned a degree in environmental science from the University of Kansas. She also attended a American University in Washington and a UN University for Peace program. She had a master’s degree in international studies and sustainable global development, according to her father Robert.The Milgrim family were not aware of the upcoming proposal. Her father said the Israeli ambassador told them about it when he telephoned Wednesday night to inform them of the young couple’s death.Milgrim’s mother Nancy told The New York Times she had been planning to fly to Washington on Sunday to look after her daughter’s dog.She had seen alerts on her phone about the shooting in Washington, and tracked her daughter to the Capital Jewish Museum before the ambassador’s call. “I pretty much already knew,” the father told The New York Times.After university Milgrim spent a year in Israel working with the Tech2Peace group aimed at bringing together young Israelis and Palestinians for seminars on peacemaking and tech training.On LinkedIn, she said she had carried out a study “on the role of friendships in the Israeli-Palestinian peacebuilding process.””She was doing what she loved, she was doing good,” her father told US media.

Fighting back tears, the head of the World Health Organization on Thursday urged Israel to have “mercy” in the Gaza war and insisted peace would be in Israel’s own interests.In an emotional intervention at the WHO annual assembly, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the war was hurting Israel and would not bring a lasting solution.”I can feel how people in Gaza would feel at the moment. I can smell it. I can visualise it. I can hear even the sounds. And this is because of PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder),” said Tedros, 60, who has often recalled his own wartime upbringing in Ethiopia.”You can imagine how people are suffering. It’s really wrong to weaponise food. It’s very wrong to weaponise medical supplies.”The United Nations on Thursday began distributing around 90 truckloads of aid which are the first deliveries into Gaza since Israel imposed a total blockade on March 2.Tedros said only a political solution could bring a meaningful peace.”A call for peace is actually in the best interests of Israel itself. I feel that the war is hurting Israel itself and it will not bring a lasting solution,” he said.”I ask if you can have mercy. It’s good for you and good for the Palestinians. It’s good for humanity.”- ‘Systematic’ destruction -WHO emergencies director Michael Ryan said that 2.1 million people in Gaza were “in imminent danger of death”.”We need to end the starvation, we need to release all hostages and we need to resupply and bring the health system back online,” he said.”As an ex-hostage, I can say that all hostages should be released. Their families are suffering. Their families are in pain,” he added.The WHO said Gazans were suffering acute shortages of food, water, medical supplies, fuel and shelter.Four major hospitals have had to suspend medical services in the past week, due to their proximity to hostilities or evacuation zones, and attacks.Only 19 of the Gaza Strip’s 36 hospitals remain operational, with staff working in “impossible conditions”, the UN health agency said in a statement.”At least 94 percent of all hospitals in the Gaza Strip are damaged or destroyed,” it said, while north Gaza “has been stripped of nearly all health care”.It said that across the Palestinian territory, only 2,000 hospital beds remained available — a figure “grossly insufficient to meet the current needs”.”The destruction is systematic. Hospitals are rehabilitated and resupplied, only to be exposed to hostilities or attacked again. This destructive cycle must end.”

International tensions over anti-Semitism erupted Thursday after two Israeli embassy staffers were shot dead at a Jewish museum in Washington by a gunman who shouted “free Palestine” as he was arrested.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.””This incitement is also done by leaders and officials of many countries and international organizations, especially from Europe,” he said.French foreign ministry spokesman Christophe Lemoine called the accusation “completely outrageous and completely unjustified.”The killings took place just outside the Capital Jewish Museum late Wednesday as the venue, a mile (1.6 kilometers) from the White House, hosted a social event for young professionals and diplomatic staff.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu cited “the terrible price of anti-Semitism” and decried “wild incitement against the State of Israel.”Soon after the shooting, President Donald Trump — who spoke with Netanyahu on Thursday — posted on social media that the attack was clearly anti-Semitic and such killings had to stop.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.Police detained the shooter, 30-year-old Elias Rodriguez of Chicago, at the scene.- ‘Free Palestine’ -Video footage on social media showed a bearded man in a jacket and white shirt shouting “free, free Palestine” as he was led away.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.The attack came days after the museum was awarded a grant to boost security, as anti-Semitism surges worldwide in the wake of Israel’s devastating invasion of Gaza, prompted by the October 7, 2023 attack by Palestinian militant group Hamas.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.Britain and France — who have stepped up their criticism of Israel’s actions — were among those condemning the shooting, as well as Germany and the United Arab Emirates.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.”They “think that they’re advancing peace. They’re not,” he said in a video.- ‘Anti-Semitism, I feel it every day’ – On Thursday, mourners gathered at the museum in Washington to sing and pray.”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.”Obviously the war is awful,” mourner Gil Livni told AFP. “(But) anti-Semitism, I feel it every day…  people that I thought were my friends showing that they are anti-Semitic. It’s become the norm.”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.”Witnesses said security personnel appeared at first to mistake the gunman for a victim of the shooting and allowed him into the museum, where he was initially comforted by bystanders.”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.Police said the suspect was seen pacing outside the museum before the shooting around 9:00 pm (0100 GMT Thursday).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 a researcher at the Israeli embassy, while Milgrim worked for its public diplomacy department, according to their LinkedIn profiles.Lischinsky was Christian, according to The Times of Israel, for whom he had previously worked as a blogger. He also held a German passport.

Global equities were sluggish Thursday as US Treasury bond yields moderated following House passage of President Donald Trump’s mammoth tax cut legislation.A spike on Wednesday in yields on 10- and 30-year US bonds sent stocks sharply lower amid revived worries about a sell-off in US assets comparable to one earlier this spring before Trump retreated …

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US President Donald Trump on Thursday will host a private event for hundreds of top investors in his crypto memecoin, with leaders of the Democratic opposition blasting it as “an orgy of corruption.”The unprecedented melding of US presidential power and personal business will take place at Trump’s golf club outside Washington, where the 220 biggest …

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced Thursday his pick for the next head of the Shin Bet domestic security agency, defying the country’s attorney general and a significant segment of the public.”Prime Minister Netanyahu announced this evening his decision to appoint Major General David Zini as the next head of the Shin Bet,” a statement from the premier’s office said.The decision is the latest development in a long-running controversy surrounding the role, which has seen mass protests against the incumbent chief’s dismissal, as well as against moves pushed by Netanyahu’s government to expand elected officials’ power to appoint judges.The supreme court on Wednesday ruled the government’s decision to fire current domestic security chief Ronen Bar was “improper and unlawful”.Netanyahu’s move to tap Zini to replace Bar directly defied Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara, who had said that, given the court ruling, the premier “must refrain from any action related to the appointment of a new head of the Shin Bet”.Netanyahu immediately responded in a rare press conference that his government would make an appointment despite Baharav-Miara’s stance. Following Thursday’s announcement, the attorney general released a statement saying that the prime minister was acting “contrary to legal guidance”.”There is serious concern that he acted while in a conflict of interest, and the appointment process is flawed,” the statement said. – New court challenge -Zini, the son of immigrants from France and the grandson of a Holocaust survivor, has held “many” operational and command positions in the Israeli military, Thursday’s announcement said, including for some elite units and combat brigades. The announcement comes after more than two months of political and legal wrangling over who should head the powerful agency. In March, Netanyahu said that he was dismissing Bar due to “ongoing lack of trust”. The move was challenged in court by non-profit organisations and the political opposition, which decried it as a sign of anti-democratic drift on the part of Netanyahu’s right-wing government.Following Thursday’s announcement, opposition leader Yair Lapid called on “General Zini to announce that he cannot accept his appointment until the Supreme Court rules on the matter”.The NGO Movement for Quality Government in Israel, meanwhile, said it will file a legal petition “in the coming days against this invalid appointment, and will continue to stand firm against attempts to defy the legal system and the rule of law”.Bar himself suggested that his ouster was linked to investigations into Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack “and other serious matters”.He has since said he will step down in June.Baharav-Miara has suggested Netanyahu’s conflict of interest in removing Bar stems from a case, dubbed “Qatargate” by Israeli media, involving close advisers to the premier under investigation for allegedly receiving money from the Gulf emirate, which has long hosted the political office of Hamas.Far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir said Thursday that “the authority to appoint the head of the Shin Bet is legally granted solely to the prime minister — and it is good that the prime minister exercised this authority and appointed a very worthy individual”.

Plumes of smoke rose Thursday over the northern Gaza Strip, where Israel’s military urged civilians to evacuate, as rescuers said Israeli strikes across the territory killed more than 50 people.The latest evacuation warning for parts of Gaza City and neighbouring areas came hours after the United Nations said it had begun distributing around 90 truckloads of aid in Gaza — the first such delivery since Israel imposed a total blockade on March 2.The World Food Programme (WFP) later said a “handful of bakeries” had resumed making and distributing bread, while the United Nations said some trucks were “intercepted” by residents.Under global pressure to lift the blockade and halt a newly expanded offensive, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he was open to a “temporary ceasefire”, but reaffirmed the military aimed to bring all of Gaza under its control.In an Arabic-language statement on Thursday, the military said it was acting “with intense force” in 14 areas of the northern Gaza Strip, including parts of Gaza City and the Jabalia refugee camp.A map posted alongside the warning showed a swath of territory marked in red, with the army accusing “terrorist organisations” of operating there and urging civilians to move south.The vast majority of Gaza’s 2.4 million have been displaced at least once during the war.After Israel announced it would allow in limited aid, Netanyahu said it was necessary to “avoid a humanitarian crisis in order to preserve our freedom of operational action”.In Gaza, the Hamas government media office reported the arrival of 87 aid trucks.UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said that “a small number of trucks carrying flour were intercepted by residents and their contents removed”.Dujarric said it “was not a criminal act with armed men”, but “what I’ve been referring to sometimes as self-distribution, which I think only reflects the very high level of anxiety that people in Gaza are feeling not knowing when the next humanitarian delivery will take place”.- ‘Hunger and disease’ -Palestinians have been scrambling for basic supplies, with Israel’s blockade leading to critical food and medicine shortages.UN agencies have said that the amount of aid entering Gaza falls far short of what is required to ease the crisis.Hossam Abu Aida, a 38-year-old displaced Palestinian in Gaza City said: “I am tormented for my children”.”For them, I fear hunger and disease more than I do Israeli bombardment,” he told AFP.AFP footage showed bags of recently delivered flour at a bakery in the central city of Deir el-Balah, where workers and a host of machines began kneading, shaping, baking and packaging stack after stack of pita bread.”Some aid is finally reaching Gazans in desperate need, but it’s moving far too slowly,” said WFP executive director Cindy McCain.”A handful of bakeries in south and central Gaza… have resumed bread production after dozens of trucks were finally able to collect cargo from the Kerem Shalom border crossing and deliver it overnight,” the WFP said in a statement.Israel stepped up its offensive at the weekend, vowing to defeat Gaza’s Hamas rulers, whose October 2023 attack on Israel triggered the war.Gaza’s civil defence agency reported “52 martyrs” in Israeli air strikes across the territory on Thursday.AFP footage of northern Gaza showed numerous plumes of smoke rising from the area over the course of the afternoon.There was no comment from the Israeli military on any strikes on Thursday.- ‘Emboldening Hamas’ -The intensified Israeli offensive has drawn criticism, with EU foreign ministers agreeing on Tuesday to review the bloc’s cooperation accord with Israel.Sweden said it would press the 27-nation European Union to impose sanctions on Israeli ministers, while Britain suspended free-trade negotiations with Israel.In a joint statement, the leaders of Britain, Canada and France slammed the escalation and the “wholly inadequate” resumption of aid, warning of the possibility of “concrete actions in response”.Netanyahu hit back on Thursday, saying the three leaders “may think that they’re advancing peace. They’re not. They’re emboldening Hamas to continue fighting forever.”Hamas’s October 2023 attack resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.Gaza’s health ministry says at least 3,613 people have been killed since Israel resumed strikes on March 18, taking the war’s overall toll to 53,762, mostly civilians.During the Hamas attack, militants also took 251 hostages, 57 of whom remain in Gaza including 34 the Israel military says are dead.Netanyahu said Wednesday that Israel would be ready “if there is an option for a temporary ceasefire to free hostages”, noting that at least 20 captives held by Hamas and its allies were still believed to be alive.