The murder of two employees of the Israeli embassy in Washington on Wednesday night is among the main topics of the American press, writes BTA.
As authorities investigate the shocking act of violence that left a young couple dead and caused shock nationally and internationally, the image of the man accused of pulling the trigger is beginning to emerge, notes "Washington Post".
Elias Rodriguez, a 31-year-old Chicago resident who was charged Thursday with two counts of first-degree murder and the murder of foreign employees, has a degree in English, experience in activism and, based on social media profiles that appear to be his, a growing sense of outrage over the war in Gaza, the newspaper said.
The son of an Illinois National Guard sergeant deployed to Iraq during the U.S. war against Saddam Hussein's regime, Rodriguez appears to have been affiliated with Marxist-Leninist groups. He worked for the American Osteopathic Information Association, helping to verify doctors' information for a database. A check of Illinois court records found no criminal record for him.
Investigators yesterday reviewed a letter posted on social media about an hour after the shooting from an "Ex" account that appeared to belong to one of the shooters. He himself is in custody for the shooting of Yaron Lisinski, 30, and Sarah Lynn Milgrim, 26, who worked at the Israeli embassy in Washington and were preparing to get married.
The post, titled "Escalation on Gaza, Bringing the War Home", accuses Israel of "genocide" and says that the "perpetrator" can sometimes be a good person, "and yet be a monster". The message ends with "I love you, Mom, Dad, Sister, the rest of my family..." and "Freedom for Palestine".
The same account posted a message earlier this year saying "Death to Israel".
Yesterday, FBI agents were seen entering and exiting an apartment where Rodriguez lived, on a quiet, tree-lined street in the "East Albany Park" neighborhood. A faded sign reading "Justice for Wadea" hung in the window of the apartment where Rodriguez is believed to be living - an apparent reference to the 2023 murder. in Illinois of Wadea Alfayoumi, a 6-year-old Palestinian-American boy who was stabbed to death by his landlord.
Rodriguez was born and raised in Chicago and graduated with a degree in English from the University of Illinois at Chicago, according to a now-deleted profile on the website of the nonprofit organization "History Makers", where he appears to have worked before 2024.
Rodriguez was at one point affiliated with the far-left Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL), the "Washington Post" noted, though it distanced itself from him after his arrest, saying he was not a member and was "only briefly associated with a branch of the PSL, with the relationship ending in 2017". The party has organized protests in support of the Palestinian cause, the newspaper noted.
A 2017 article in "Liberation", a newspaper affiliated with the Party for Socialism and Liberation, reported that Elias Rodriguez, a member of the group, gave a speech at a protest against the police shooting of Laquan McDonald in Chicago.
The article, which appears to have been deleted on Thursday, quoted Rodriguez asking whether Americans want "a nation of cities dominated and occupied by giant corporations, where only the rich and white can live, while the majority of us must live on the outskirts of the city and society."
"The New York Times" focuses on the private lives of the slain Israeli embassy employees in Washington.
According to the publication, Sarah Milgrim's parents were unaware that Yaron Liszinski was planning to propose to her until the couple was murdered in Washington on Wednesday night.
Her parents assumed the marriage was imminent. Milgrim, who grew up in Prairie Village, Kansas, met Liszinski shortly after she joined the Israeli embassy a year and a half ago to organize missions and delegation visits. Liszinski, a researcher at the embassy, had met her parents several times.
A few months ago, Sarah Milgrim, 26, told her parents that she planned to travel with Liszinski, 30, to meet his family in Jerusalem for the first time. What they didn't know, and wouldn't learn until after the shooting, was that he had bought an engagement ring before the trip.
Since the couple was scheduled to fly to Israel on Sunday, Sarah's mother, Nancy Milgrim, planned to travel to Washington on Friday from Prairie Village, a suburb of Kansas City, to care for her daughter's dog.
After learning about the shooting and trying to contact their daughter, Sarah's parents received a call from Israel's ambassador to the United States, Yechiel Leiter, who told them that Sarah Milgrim and her boyfriend had died and offered his condolences.
It was a terrible moment, said the father, Robert Milgrim. He pointed out that anti-Semitism has been on the rise since Israel began the war in Gaza following attacks on Israel by "Hamas" on Oct. 7, 2023.
"What went through my mind was that I sensed the anti-Semitism that surfaced after Oct. 7, and also after President Trump was elected," Milgrim said. "My worst fears have come true".
"The paradox is that we were worried about our daughter's safety in Israel," her father added. "But she was killed three days before she left."
Lishinsky was born in Israel and moved with his family to Germany, where they lived for several years before returning to Israel when he was 16, said his brother Hanan, who is 32. His family lives in Beit Zait, a small village in the hills west of Jerusalem.
Yaron Lishinsky knew from a young age that he wanted to become an Israeli diplomat, said Prof. Nissim Otmazgin, one of his professors at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. "He saw it as his calling," said Prof. Otmazgin, dean of the university's Faculty of Humanities. Liszinski studied there from 2018 to 2021, earning a bachelor's degree in international relations and Asian studies.
He grew up in a mixed family with a Jewish father and a Christian mother and was a practicing Christian, says Ronen Shoval, dean of the Argaman Institute for Contemporary Studies in Jerusalem, where Liszinski is participating in a year-long program in classical liberal-conservative thought after earning a master's degree in public administration and diplomacy.
The New York Times notes that in 2021, Sara Milgrim received her bachelor's degree from the University of Kansas. She has lived abroad in several places, including Costa Rica, where she received a master's degree in natural resources and sustainable development from the University for Peace, established by the United Nations. She also holds a master's degree in international relations from American University.
Sarah Milgrim's mother said her daughter and Yaron Liszinski were concerned about peace in the Middle East, the stability of Israel and the plight of the Palestinians.
"She did what she loved, she did good," her father said. He added that doing good was "what led to the end of her life."