MIAMI – The shooting of two staff members at the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C. is prompting security concerns here in South Florida.
Local 10 reporter Hannah Yechivi was outside the Israeli Consulate in Miami Thursday where there were more police officers present than usual.
Noon report:
The Miami Beach Police Department and the Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office have also increased the presence of officers and deputies in and around synagogues, temples, Jewish schools, Jewish organizations and Jewish neighborhoods.
“We are shocked and horrified this morning by the news of the brutal terrorist attack … We will not be deterred by terror,” the Consulate General of Israel in Miami said in part in a statement. “We will continue our mission across the globe, with unwavering commitment, to represent Israel with pride.”
“We stand in solidarity, in anger, and in mourning with Washington’s Jewish and Israeli communities,” the Greater Miami Jewish Federation said in part in a statement. “And we persist. Miami’s Jewish community is among the proudest, most resilient, most Zionistic in the country. We will not be intimidated by terrorists or terrorism. We will continue to live openly and proudly as Jews, to gather in community, and to unabashedly support Israel and her right to exist as a Jewish, democratic state.”
The Greater Miami Jewish Federation confirmed that it is coordinating safety efforts with local law enforcement agencies, but there are “no known additional threats to the South Florida Jewish community at this time.”
In Broward County, the President of the Jewish Federation shared similar sentiments.
“Every day we wake up thinking ‘is today the day something’s going to happen?’ and that’s why in the Jewish community we take security very seriously,” said Audra Berg, President of the Jewish Federation of Broward County. “South Florida is a really special place and it feels really safe and easy and comfortable to be Jewish in this community. But that doesn’t mean that we can be realized. We have to keep our eye on the ball.”
According to police in the nation’s capital, two staff members of the Israeli Embassy in Washington were shot and killed while leaving an event at a Jewish museum, and the suspect yelled, “Free, free Palestine” after he was arrested.
The stunning attack on Wednesday evening prompted Israeli missions to beef up their security and lower their flags to half-staff. It came as Israel has launched another major offensive in the Gaza Strip in a war with Hamas that has heightened tensions across the Middle East and internationally and as antisemitic acts are on the rise.
The two people killed, identified as Yaron Lischinsky, an Israeli citizen, and Sarah Milgrim, an American, were a young couple about to be engaged, according to Yechiel Leiter, the Israeli ambassador to the U.S.
The couple were leaving an event at the Capital Jewish Museum when the suspect, who had been seen pacing outside the museum, approached a group of four people and opened fire, Metropolitan Police Chief Pamela Smith said at a news conference.
The gunman, identified by police as Elias Rodriguez, 31, of Chicago, then walked into the museum, was detained by event security and began chanting, “Free, free Palestine,” Smith said.
