The Civil Assassination Comes Home

On legitimate targets, the rules of mourning, and utter horror in Gaza

A 30-year-old man named Elias Rodriguez shot two Israeli embassy staffers dead outside the Jewish Museum in DC on Wednesday night. The victims had just left an American Jewish Committee reception for “young diplomats,” an event Rodriguez had bought a ticket to hours earlier.

As he was arrested, he shouted, “Free, free Palestine!” A manifesto attributed to him said the attack aimed to shatter the illusion of impunity for those complicit in Israel’s genocide in Gaza. It didn’t mention Jews.

My initial reaction was that the shooting wasn’t fundamentally antisemitic—it was a catastrophically stupid, destructive act of political violence. A gift to critics eager to smear the pro-Palestine movement as ruthless and antisemitic, and justify further crackdowns. It seemed notable that, in a crowd of Jewish attendees—most of whom presumably had no formal ties to the Israeli government—Rodriguez managed to pick out two embassy employees, including one who was a practicing Christian.

But after sitting with it for a few days and watching the discourse unfold, I’ve come to my own conclusion that shooting people at a Jewish event held at a Jewish museum has antisemitism embedded in it—regardless of who was targeted or what his manifesto said—because of the obvious fear it’s bound to provoke among Jewish people at large. And my readers know I’m the last person to cry wolf about antisemitism.

That said, the question of whether his motives were antisemitic feels far less urgent to me than the question of where any antisemitism might have come from. I know I’m echoing what many others have said, but after Rodriguez himself, I blame the mainstream Jewish institutions that have spent the past 19 months insisting that Israel’s actions in Gaza are carried out in the name of Jews everywhere. Many of us fought against that conflation because it was inaccurate and morally bankrupt, and because we knew the blowback was coming. How many untainted witnesses to this genocide have been convinced by the Jonathan Greenblatts of the world that it’s the Jews they actually hate?

I have nothing but contempt for Greenblatt and his ilk, who were blaming pro-Palestine activists before the bodies had cooled. They are utterly incapable of even a moment’s reflection on the role their own rhetoric might have played, let alone the mass murder they’re defending every day. To state the obvious: these people have nothing to say about the hundreds of Palestinians who are murdered every week by the state they believe should be immune from criticism.

They also seem to have nothing to say about U.S. Congressman Randy Fine calling for Israel to nuke Gaza in response to the shooting. Nothing about the Israeli soldiers spray-painting the Star of David on the charred husks of homes they’ve destroyed. Nothing about the Israeli doctor stationed in Gaza who asked for permission to kill Palestinians as a matter of “public health,” like “eliminating cockroaches.” Nothing about the Knesset Ethics Committee ruling that the Deputy Speaker’s repeated calls to “burn Gaza” were acceptable forms of political expression.

One of the victims, Yarón Lischinsky, was active on X, where he routinely defended and denied Israel’s worst atrocities in Gaza and shared propaganda from the most extreme right-wing leaders of Israel and America. I loathe everything he appeared to stand for, and I absolutely believe he was complicit in the genocide. But I also don’t believe he was a legitimate target for assassination, and I’m sorry that it happened.

But I wonder what Greenblatt would say about who counts as a legitimate target, given that Israel’s logic has more in common with Rodriguez’s than mine. Just days before the shooting, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich boasted that the IDF has been targeting civil servants—“ministers, bureaucrats, money handlers, everyone who holds up Hamas’s civilian rule.” Less than a month ago, an Israeli airstrike targeted the home of a Gaza finance ministry worker and killed 15 members of his family. By Israel’s own logic, every Israeli embassy staffer—along with every journalist covering IDF operations, every doctor in Israeli hospitals, every garbageman in Tel Aviv—would be fair game to be killed with their families. At least Rodriguez had the decency not to bomb the whole museum.

So when I weigh all this against one of the most horrific weeks in Gaza since the war began, the idea that it’s the pro-Palestine movement that needs to reform strikes me as one of the stupidest, most offensive, and openly racist deflections I’ve ever seen. The outrage over the killing of two embassy staffers—and the deluge of stories about their beautiful, peaceful lives—contrasted with the silence around incinerated children, daily massacres, and the routine, normalized calls for genocide against Palestinians, tells me everything I need to know about the depths of dehumanization these people are capable of.

It’s tragic that Yarón Lischinsky and Sarah Lynn Milgrim were killed a week before their engagement. Even more tragic is that we’ll never hear the tens of thousands of stories just like theirs, buried under the rubble in Gaza.

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Below is this week’s roundup. As always, I appreciate you hitting the heart button (algorithm fuel), sharing the post, and pledging for a future subscription.

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Gaza

Aid Charade

After more than two months of blockade, Israel agreed to let in limited aid to stave off diplomatic backlash as it continues annihilating Gaza. “Our best friends in the world… have warned that they cannot support us if images of mass starvation emerge,” Netanyahu said. (Haaretz)

Smotrich endorsed the move, reportedly in exchange for more settlement housing, but reassured his base, “We are disassembling Gaza, and leaving it as piles of rubble, with total destruction [which has] no precedent globally. And the world isn’t stopping us.” (Haaretz)

Fifty-three percent of Israelis oppose the move, according to a Channel 13 poll, and protesters have gathered at the border to block the trucks. (ME Monitor, Guardian)

Aid groups have unanimously condemned Israel’s plan to route aid through militarized hubs run by private contractors under IDF oversight. Eleven NGOs called it a “blueprint for ethnic cleansing” that entrenches border control, excludes the disabled and wounded, and uses aid as bait to force displacement.

The NGOs warned: “The biggest barrier to humanitarian access in Gaza is not inefficiency or corruption, it is the deliberate restriction of aid by the Israeli government.” (Mondoweiss)

The aid system, billed as “neutral,” was conceived by Israeli military and business elites in late 2023 as a way to sideline the UN and concentrate Palestinians into IDF-controlled zones. (NY Times)

On Sunday night, Jake Wood—the ex-Marine sniper leading the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, the group tasked with actually distributing the aid—resigned: “It is not possible to implement this plan while also strictly adhering to the humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality, and independence, which I will not abandon.” (NY Times)

To spell it out: a War on Terror sniper who now runs a team of mercenaries says the plan is too corrupt and inhumane even for him.

Teaspoon of Aid

Israel says it allowed 300 trucks into Gaza, though many were held up at checkpoints. The UN says 500 to 600 are needed daily, and that “the aid authorised until now amounts to a teaspoon of aid when a flood of assistance is required.” (Al Jazeera, Reuters)

At least 326 people have died from starvation and lack of medicine, and over 300 pregnant women have miscarried due to malnutrition. Desalination plants are days from collapse, leaving families to drink contaminated water and triggering a surge in kidney failure and child illness. Rats are gnawing on the bodies of children living amid rubble and sewage, as treatable conditions like chickenpox and hepatitis are claiming their lives. (ME Eye, BBC, Electronic Intifada, Mondoweiss)

A four-year-old boy starved to death on Sunday. You can see his picture here, or a starving infant on the brink of death here.

Civil Assassinations

Making good on Smotrich’s promise to keep targeting civil servants, an Israeli strike hit the home of the Gaza Civil Defense Director, killing him and his wife (Quds)

The IDF killed six men guarding aid trucks as they tried to fend off looters. (Al Jazeera)

In Jabalia, Israel targeted and killed its 220th journalist. (J Post)

Two Red Cross workers were killed by an Israeli airstrike on their home. (ME Eye)

Ahmed al-Dali, a paracyclist and father of four who lost his leg in a 2014 airstrike, was killed by another airstrike last Monday. (Guardian Photograph: Athletes For Palestine/Gaza Sunbirds)

The Kill Zone

Since October 7, Israel has killed at least 16,506 Palestinian children, including 916 infants. The overall death toll is approaching 54K, not counting the thousands still buried under the rubble. (Sharif Kouddous)

Mohammad Alsaafin on X.

An Israeli airstrike on a school-turned-shelter at 1 a.m. Monday killed at least 33 people, mostly children, and injured over 55. (Al Jazeera)

Here is a young girl trying to escape the flames:

An Israeli airstrike killed Yaqeen Hammad, an eleven-year-old social media activist:

An Israeli airstrike targeted the home of pediatrician Alaa al-Najjar, killing nine of her ten children, aged seven months to 12 years: Yahya, Rakan, Raslan, Jubran, Ayb, Rifan, Sidin, Luqman, and Sidra.

At the time of the bombing, Dr. al-Najjar was on shift at Nasser Hospital; her husband and surviving son are in critical condition at the hospital, where she has not stopped working. (Al Jazeera, Haaretz)

If you have friends or family still supporting the war, you can send them this video of rescue workers recovering the children-turned-charcoal briquettes from the smoking rubble.

Hospital Bombings

In one week, Israel bombed at least ten hospitals and clinics, including a prosthetic limbs clinic, maternity wards, emergency rooms, and both of Gaza’s main oncology centers. At Kamal Adwan Hospital, staff returned after Israeli quadcopter fire forced their evacuation to find the building looted and essential equipment stolen. At Al-Awda, doctors treated a baby girl whose legs were shredded by a bombing, and received seven dead children in one night.

Tanks and drones attacked the Indonesian Hospital, Gaza’s last in the north, shelling the compound, shooting anyone who moved, and bombing two of its generators. Patients were dragged out on beds, oxygen lines were severed, storerooms torched, and emergency wards flooded with smoke and water from burst pipes. (Haaretz, Mondoweiss)

A BBC investigation found no evidence that there was a “Hamas command center” under the European Hospital, as Israel had claimed after the strikes killed dozens of civilians. (+972)

You can watch this little hand reaching for help here.

Unevacuated

Children and babies who were evacuated to Jordan for medical care are being sent back to Gaza before treatment is complete. Their parents say Israeli soldiers confiscated their cash and medicine at the border. (BBC)

Seven-month-old Niveen, born with a hole in her heart, was sent back to a tent in Gaza weeks after open-heart surgery. Her mother says she still turns blue, suffocates at times, and may not survive the heat and dust.

Mohammed, a one-year-old with severe asthma and life-threatening allergies, was also sent back. His mother says Israeli forces confiscated his medicine and medical records at the border.

Checking in on the IDF

The AP reports that Israeli troops have systematically forced Palestinians to act as human shields, a practice they refer to as “mosquito protocol.” (AP)

The Israeli army is calling up reservists with PTSD. At least two have killed themselves after redeployment to Gaza. (Haaretz).

The Israeli military has seized 2,600 weapons from Gaza since October 7, a fascinating number given its claim that it has killed 20,000 “terrorists.” It has also stolen over 100 million shekels in cash. (Haaretz)

Israeli officials admit there’s no single “center of gravity” left to collapse Hamas, which still fields tens of thousands of fighters, begging the question of how they plan on declaring victory. (J Post)

An IDF soldier in Gaza was severely wounded when a fellow soldier beat him with a kettle. (J Post)

Goal Posts

Last week, Netanyahu said the war would continue even if all hostages were freed. Now he claims it won’t end unless the Trump-backed plan to forcibly depopulate Gaza is carried out. (Times of Israel, Forward)

On Monday, Hamas reportedly agreed to a U.S. proposal for a 60-day ceasefire with the release of 10 living captives and several bodies in return for an undisclosed number of Palestinian prisoners. (Reuters)

West Bank and East Jerusalem

These Things Happen

Israel “regrets the inconvenience” of shooting at foreign diplomats in Jenin. (Haaretz)

Happy Holidays

To celebrate Jerusalem Day, Israeli soldiers shuttered Palestinian homes and shops in East Jerusalem, clearing space for carolers chanting “Death to Arabs” and “May your village burn.” Elsewhere, a Knesset member broke into the UNRWA’s vacated compound and raised an Israeli flag, while Ben Gvir stormed the Al-Aqsa Mosque. (Haaretz, UN)

Standard Procedure

Israeli authorities reportedly forced three Palestinian families to demolish their own homes in East Jerusalem. (ME Monitor)

Israeli forces shot and killed two teenage boys in separate incidents and confiscated their bodies. (DCI)

The IDF says it killed the militant who shot a pregnant woman on her way to give birth near Bruchin. Days later, continued raids injured 14, among them a child run over by an IDF truck. (J Post, ME Eye)

Daily Pogroms

Settlers carried out two pogroms in Bruchin in three days, torching homes and cars and assaulting residents while the army stood by. (Times of Israel)

The village of Mughayyir al-Deir was abandoned after five straight days of settler attacks, with the IDF looking on. (Guardian)

Armed settlers assaulted a Palestinian shepherd in Masafer Yatta and expelled herders from grazing land. (ME Eye)

Israel

The Big Questions

Gideon Levy asks if a single Israeli will call to end the war for Gaza’s sake. (Haaretz)

Haaretz published a parenting guide for what to do when your child calls for genocide. (Haaretz)

Friendly Fire

Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert says Israel is committing war crimes in Gaza and the West Bank. (ME Eye)

Yair Golan, former Israeli general and the leader of the country’s opposition party, warned that Israel risks becoming a “pariah state”: “A sane country does not “fight against civilians,” “kill babies as a hobby,” or aim to expel populations. (ME Eye)

Netanyahu called his comments “wild incitement” and a “blood libel,” declaring that “The IDF is the most moral army in the world.” (Times of Israel)

Later, former MK Moshe Feiglin went on television and said, “Every child and every baby in Gaza is the enemy … Every child that you are now giving milk to will rape your daughters and slaughter your children in 15 years … This should be the goal of the war: A total occupation of the Strip and the expulsion of all the Islamo-Nazism that has grown under our window. Yes! Until the last of the babies.” (Yeshiva World)

Netanyahu said “Free Palestine!” is the new “Heil Hitler!”

First Lady Report

Sara Netanyahu, known for drinking 160 cases of champagne and calling her housekeeper “stupid” and “retarded,” is interviewing candidates for top military positions.

Hostage Revolt

Hostage parents sent a letter to Netanyahu demanding that the government stop using their sons’ images in campaigns to prolong the war. (Times of Israel)

Edan Alexander’s father said his son was nearly buried alive when an Israeli airstrike collapsed the tunnel he was held in. (Times of Israel)

Another freed hostage, Naama Levy, told a rally that IDF airstrikes were her greatest fear in captivity. (Times of Israel)

Likud MK Tally Gotliv said she didn’t listen to calls to end the war from freed hostages since they had been “brainwashed by Hamas.” (J Post)

The Other Hostages

Israel has re-arrested seven Palestinians freed in the February prisoner exchange, bringing the total re-detained to 13. (ME Eye)

Israel is currently holding 119 Palestinian children in administrative detention without charge, trial, or access to family visits or legal counsel. (DCI)

A 33-year-old Palestinian from Gaza died in Israel’s Sde Teiman prison—where detainees are tortured, starved, and raped—becoming the 70th prisoner to die since October 7. (Quds)

U.S.

Deep Thoughts

U.S. Ambassador Mike Huckabee wondered if Palestinians really need a separate state, since they seem pretty happy in Israel. (Haaretz)

The “Rift”

Trump has grown tired of seeing images of starving children and wants Netanyahu to “wrap it up.” (Axios)

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem visited Netanyahu, offering “unwavering support” and praising his conduct of the war. (NY Times)

Israeli officials are reportedly ready to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities if Trump’s negotiations collapse. (Axios)

Free Speech Report

George Washington University banned a student from campus after she denounced Israel’s war on Gaza and called for divestment in her graduation speech. (Forward)

Detained Columbia graduate Mahmoud Khalil held his one-month-old son for the first time after a judge overruled the Trump administration’s effort to stop him. (Guardian)

AIPAC may be coming for Congresswoman Ilhan Omar. (Intercept)

Ms. Rachel sang a song about bunnies with Rahaf, a 3-year-old amputee from Gaza:

msrachelforlittles

A post shared by @msrachelforlittles

Rest of the World

Allies Break Ranks Over Gaza Escalation

Britain, France, and Canada condemned Israel’s actions in Gaza as “disproportionate” and “egregious,” suspending trade talks and threatening further action.

Netanyahu said they had handed a “huge prize” to Hamas and reiterated that it was “a war of civilization over barbarism,” which is something most of us can agree on. (NY Times)

Seventeen of 27 EU foreign ministers backed a motion brought by the Netherlands to reconsider the bloc’s trade and cooperation pact with Israel. (Axios)

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Thanks for reading. I’m particularly interested in your thoughts on what I wrote about the DC shooting, but please don’t incriminate yourself.

Jasper