The international community should look to impose sanctions on Israel to stop its war in Gaza, Spain’s foreign minister has said, ahead of a Madrid meeting of European and Arab nations, urging a halt to Israel’s punishing offensive in which Palestinian deaths and the spread of starvation are increasing each day.
The high-level talks on Sunday are the fifth official meeting of what is known as “The Madrid Group”.
Countries in the European Union that Israel had long counted on as close allies have been adding their voices to growing global pressure after it expanded military operations in the besieged and bombarded Gaza Strip.
A nearly three-month aid blockade has worsened shortages of food, water, fuel and medicine in the Palestinian enclave, which has been devastated and ravaged due to Israel’s relentless war that followed the Hamas-led October 7 attack in 2023.
Barely any aid has crossed into Gaza since Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said a week ago that Israel would allow limited aid in to assuage concerns from allies.
The United Nations has said the amount of aid allowed in so far is a “drop in the ocean”, while some aid groups have described Netanyahu’s announcement as a “smokescreen”.
Aid organisations say the trickle of supplies Israel that allowed to enter in recent days falls far short of needs, which is between 500-600 trucks a day. Israel has allowed some 100 trucks carrying aid into Gaza since Wednesday, officials say.
Madrid, Spain is hosting 20 countries as well as international organisations on Sunday with the aim of “stopping this war, which no longer has any goal”, Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares said.
“In this terrible moment, in this humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, we aim to … stop this war … [and to] break the blockade of humanitarian assistance that must go in unimpeded,” Albares told Al Jazeera ahead of the meeting.
‘We must consider sanctions’
The Madrid meeting will serve as preparation for a high-level UN conference on the two-state solution, which France and Saudi Arabia will host in New York on June 17.
“We want to create momentum” ahead of the UN conference, Albares said, so that “everyone” can recognise Palestine as an independent state.
“That conference in New York must be a big moment to push towards recognition of the state of Palestine,” he added.
A previous such gathering in Madrid last year brought together countries including Egypt, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkiye as well as European nations such as Norway and the Republic of Ireland that have recognised a Palestinian state.
Sunday’s meeting, which also includes representatives from the Arab League and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, will promote a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
After the EU decided this week to review its cooperation deal with Israel, Albares said, “We must consider sanctions, we must do everything, consider everything to stop this war.”
Germany’s Deputy Foreign Minister Florian Hahn on Sunday also warned about the impact of Gaza’s deteriorating, “unbearable” humanitarian crisis, calling for an immediate ceasefire and diplomatic solution.
Hahn stressed that ending the war in Gaza and creating a path for diplomatic efforts toward a political solution is currently one of German foreign policy’s main priorities.
Al Jazeera’s Hashem Ahelbarra, reporting from Madrid, said Sunday’s meeting is going to be “crucial”.
Members are going to be “seeking the potential of further political talks that could be conducive to the Israelis coming along with the Palestinians, discussing the need to end the war and achieve a Palestinian state”, Ahelbarra said.
Israel’s deadly assault has killed almost 54,000 people, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, mostly women and children.
An Israeli air strike on the home of pediatrician Dr Alaa al-Najjar killed nine of her 10 children in Khan Younis, while she was at work in Gaza’s Nasser Hospital. Her husband and only surviving child are in critical condition.
On April 27, my brother-in-law, Samer, was killed in Deir el-Balah in central Gaza when his vegetable stall was bombed. He wasn’t armed. He wasn’t a political figure. He was a peaceful man trying to earn a living to feed his children in a place where food has become more expensive than gold.
Samer wasn’t a vendor by profession. He was a lawyer who defended the rights of the oppressed. But the war forced him to change his path.
During the ceasefire, he was able to buy vegetables from local wholesalers. After the war resumed and the crossings into Gaza were closed in March, supplies dwindled dramatically, but he maintained a small stock of vegetables. He continued selling day and night, even as buyers became scarce due to the high prices. He often tried to give us vegetables for free out of generosity, but I always refused.
When I heard about Samer’s killing, I froze. I tried to hide the news from my husband, but my tears spoke the truth. He looked like he wanted to scream, but the scream remained trapped inside his throat. Something held him back – perhaps his burdened soul could no longer bear even the expression of grief.
Samer left behind three little children and a heartbroken family. No one expected his death. It came as a shock. He was a good and pure-hearted young man, always cheerful, loving life and laughter, even in the toughest times.
I still remember him standing in front of his vegetable stall, lovingly calling out to customers.
Samer is among countless food sellers who have been killed in this genocidal war. Anyone employed in providing or selling food has been targeted. Fruit and vegetable vendors, grocers, bakers, shop owners and community kitchen workers have been bombed, as if they were dealing with weapons, not food. Bakeries, shops, farms and warehouses have been destroyed, as if the food they were providing was a threat.
Ten days after Samer was killed, a restaurant and a market on al-Wahda Street, one of the busiest in the Remal neighbourhood of Gaza City, were bombed. At least 33 people were killed.
Two weeks before Samer’s martyrdom, the vicinity of a bakery in Jabaliya was bombed. Days before that, a food distribution centre in Khan Younis was targeted. According to the Government Media Office in Gaza, more than 39 food and distribution centres and 29 community kitchens have been targeted since the beginning of the war.
It is clear by now that in its campaign of deliberate starvation, Israel is not only blocking food from entering Gaza. It is also destroying every link in the food supply chain.
As a result of the repeated targeting of vendors and markets, all that is available now to buy – for those who can afford to buy food – are scraps. Death has become easier than life in Gaza.
The starvation is affecting babies and little children the worst. On May 21, the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor reported at least 26 Palestinians, including nine children, died within a 24-hour period due to starvation and lack of medical care in Gaza.
On May 5, the Ministry of Health in Gaza said it had registered the deaths of at least 57 children caused by malnutrition since the aid blockade began in early March.
As a mother, I often go days without eating just to feed my children whatever little food we have left. My husband spends the entire day searching for anything to ease our hunger but usually comes back with mere scraps. If we’re lucky, we eat a piece of bread – often stale – with a tomato or cucumber that I divide equally among our children.
The hardship Samer’s wife faces is even more unbearable. She tries to hide her tears from her children, who keep asking when their father will return from the market. The loss forced her to become a father overnight, pushing her to stand in long queues in front of community kitchens just to get a bit of food.
She often returns empty-handed, trying to comfort her children with hollow words: “When Dad comes back, he’ll bring us food.” Her children fall asleep hungry, dreaming of a bite to fill their stomachs – one their late father will never bring.
Israel has claimed that it is blocking aid to Gaza because Hamas takes it. The Western media, fully complicit in distorting the truth, has parroted the claim.
Yet it is clear that Israel is not just targeting Hamas but the entire population of Gaza. It is deliberately using starvation as a weapon of war against civilians, obstructing the flow of humanitarian aid – a war crime, according to international law.
Recently, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made the true aim of his government more than apparent by demanding all Palestinians be expelled from Gaza as a condition for ending the war.
His decision to allow food through the crossings is nothing but a PR stunt. Enough flour was let in to have images of bread distributed at a bakery circulating in the media and to reassure the world that we are not starving.
But these images do not reflect the reality for us on the ground. My family has not received any bread and neither have the majority of families. Flour – where available – continues to cost $450 per bag.
While Israel claims that 388 aid trucks have entered since Monday, aid organisations are saying 119 have. An unknown number of these have been looted because the Israeli army continues to target anyone trying to secure aid distribution.
This tiny trickle of aid Israel is allowing is nothing compared with the needs of the starving population. At least 500 trucks are required every single day to cover the bare minimum.
Meanwhile, some Western governments have threatened sanctions and made some symbolic gestures to supposedly pressure Israel to stop starving us. Why did they need to wait to see our children dying of hunger before doing this? And why are they only threatening and not taking real action?
Today, our greatest wish is to find a loaf of bread. Our sole concern is how to keep surviving amid this catastrophic famine that has broken our bones and melted our insides. No one among us is healthy any more. We’ve become skeletons. Our bodies are dead, but they still pulse with hope – yearning for that miraculous day when this nightmare ends.
But who will act to support us? Who still has a shred of compassion for us in their heart?
And the most important question of all – when will the world finally stop turning a blind eye to our slow, brutal death by hunger?
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
Hostages and Missing Families Forum called for a ‘return to the negotiating table’.
Families of Israeli captives held in Gaza have intensified their criticism of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu amid large protests across the country, as the expanded military ground offensive and deadly bombardment in the Palestinian territory put the release of their loved ones at risk.
On Saturday, protesters took to the streets in Tel Aviv, Shar HaNegev Junction, Kiryat Gat, and Jerusalem, with members of the Hostages and Missing Families Forum accusing the Israeli government of prioritising its war over securing the return of their relatives.
“We demand that the decision-makers return to the negotiating table and not leave it until an agreement is reached that will bring them all back,” the group said in a statement on Saturday.
Among those speaking at a rally in Tel Aviv on Saturday was Einav Zangauker, the mother of captive Matan Zangauker, who directly addressed Netanyahu: “Tell me, Mr Prime Minister: How do you go to sleep at night and wake up in the morning. How do you look in the mirror knowing that you’re abandoning 58 hostages?”
The mounting anger among families has only deepened in recent days following Netanyahu’s nomination of Major General David Zini as the next head of the Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic intelligence agency.
Zini has reportedly voiced opposition to any deal to bring an end to Israel’s war on Gaza, telling colleagues during Israeli military meetings: “I oppose hostage deals. This is a forever war,” according to Israel’s Channel 12.
“The families of the kidnapped are outraged by the words of Major General Zini. If the publication is true, these are shocking and condemnable words coming from someone who will be the one to decide the fate of the kidnapped men and women,” the forum said in a statement on Friday.
“Appointing a Shin Bet chief who puts Netanyahu’s war before the abduction of the kidnapped is tantamount to committing a crime and doing injustice to the entire people of Israel,” the group said.
Netanyahu’s decision to appoint Zini came just one day after Israel’s Supreme Court found his attempt to fire outgoing Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar to be “unlawful”, citing a conflict of interest tied to Netanyahu’s ongoing corruption trial.
Despite the court ruling that Netanyahu could not appoint a replacement, he proceeded with the appointment of Zini anyway.
The attorney general later warned that the prime minister had defied legal guidance and tainted the appointment process.
The criticism comes as Netanyahu still faces an international arrest warrant request from the International Criminal Court over war crimes committed during the Gaza war.
The young victims, two of whom remain under the rubble, range in age from seven months to 12 years old.
An Israeli strike has killed nearly the entire family of a Khan Younis doctor while she was at work, Gaza health officials said.
The attack hit the home of Alaa al-Najjar, a paediatrician at the southern city’s Nasser Hospital, on Friday, setting it ablaze and killing nine of her 10 children, according to the head of the hospital’s paediatrics department, Ahmad al-Farra.
Al-Najjar’s husband is severely wounded, and the couple’s only surviving child, 11-year-old Adam, is in critical condition, Gaza’s Government Media Office said in a statement.
The dead children, two of whom remain under the rubble, range in age from seven months to 12 years old, the media office added.
The attack “encapsulates the ongoing genocide faced by the Palestinian people in Gaza,” said the office. “It is a full-fledged war crime under all international laws and conventions.”
‘New phase of genocide’
The UN’s special rapporteur for the Palestinian territory, Francesca Albanese, slammed the attack as part of a “sadistic pattern” of a “new phase of genocide” facing Palestinians in the besieged enclave.
Two doctors go to work to assist others.Nine of their kids are killed by an Israeli missile targeting their home. Only surviving child, in critical conditions.
Targeting families in the still-standing buildings: distinguishable sadistic pattern of the new phase of the genocide. https://t.co/6tlylARKK5
— Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur oPt (@FranceskAlbs) May 24, 2025
Hamas said it followed a routine of Israel “deliberately targeting … medical personnel, civilians and their families in an attempt to break their will”.
The Israeli military said it had struck suspected fighters operating from a structure next to its forces in an area where civilians had been evacuated. “The claim regarding harm to uninvolved civilians is under review,” the military added.
On Monday, Israel issued forced evacuation orders for Khan Younis, Gaza’s second-largest city, warning of an “unprecedented attack”. There has been heavy, deadly bombardment in the area daily.
The al-Najjar children were among dozens killed in Israel’s attacks on Friday and Saturday.
According to Gaza’s Health Ministry, the bodies of 79 people killed in Israeli attacks were brought to hospitals between Friday and midday Saturday. That count does not include facilities in the north of the enclave that are inaccessible, it said.
The ministry puts the overall death toll in Gaza since October 2023 at 53,901, with 122,593 injured.
Civil defence teams carry a body after the strike in Khan Younis
An Israeli air strike on Gaza hit the home of a doctor and killed nine of her 10 children, the hospital where she works in the city of Khan Younis says.
Nasser hospital said one of Dr Alaa al-Najjar’s children and her husband were injured, but survived.
Graeme Groom, a British surgeon working in the hospital who operated on her surviving 11-year-old boy, told the BBC it was “unbearably cruel” that his mother, who spent years caring for children as a paediatrician, could lose almost all her own in a single missile strike.
Israel’s military said its aircraft had struck “a number of suspects” in Khan Younis on Friday, and “the claim regarding harm to uninvolved civilians is under review”.
A video shared by the director of the Hamas-run health ministry and verified by the BBC showed small burned bodies lifted from the rubble of a strike in Khan Younis.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said its “aircraft struck a number of suspects who were identified operating from a structure adjacent to IDF troops in the area of Khan Younis”.
“The Khan Younis area is a dangerous war zone. Before beginning operations there, the IDF evacuated civilians from this area for their own safety,” the Israeli military said.
In a general statement on Saturday, the IDF said it had struck more than 100 targets across Gaza over the past day.
The health ministry said at least 74 people had been killed by the Israeli military over the 24 hour-period leading up to about midday on Saturday.
Dr Muneer Alboursh, director of the health ministry, said on X that the al-Najjars’ family house was hit minutes after Dr al-Najjar’s husband Hamdi had returned home after driving his wife to work.
Dr Alboursh said the eldest of Dr al-Najjar’s children was aged 12.
Mr Groom said the children’s father was “very badly injured”, in a video posted on the Instagram account of another British surgeon working at Nasser hospital, Victoria Rose.
He told the BBC that the father had a “penetrating injury to his head”.
He said he had asked about the father, also a doctor at the hospital, and had been told he had “no political and no military connections and doesn’t seem to be prominent on social media”.
He described it as an “unimaginable” situation for Dr Alaa al-Najjar.
Mr Groom said the surviving 11-year-old boy was “quite small” for his age.
“His left arm was just about hanging off, he was covered in fragment injuries and he had several substantial lacerations,” he told the BBC.
“Since both his parents are doctors, he seemed to be among the privileged group within Gaza, but as we lifted him onto the operating table, he felt much younger than 11.”
“Our little boy could survive, but we don’t know about his father,” he added.
Mahmoud Basal, spokesman for Gaza’s Hamas-run Civil Defence agency, said on Telegram on Friday afternoon that his teams had recovered eight bodies and several injured from the al-Najjar house near a petrol station in Khan Younis.
The hospital initially posted on Facebook that eight children had been killed, then two hours later updated that number to nine.
Another doctor, Youssef Abu al-Rish, said in a statement posted by the health ministry that he had arrived to the operating room to find Dr al-Najjar waiting for information about her surviving son and tried to console her.
In an interview recorded by AFP news agency, relative Youssef al-Najjar said: “Enough! Have mercy on us! We plead to all countries, the international community, the people, Hamas, and all factions to have mercy on us.
“We are exhausted from the displacement and the hunger, enough!”
Getty Images
Palestinians try to get bread at a bakery window in Gaza on 22 May
On Friday, UN Secretary-General António Guterres warned that people in Gaza were enduring what may be “the cruellest phase” of the war, and denounced Israel’s blockade on humanitarian aid imposed in March.
Israel partially lifted the blockade earlier this week. Israeli military body Cogat said 83 more trucks carrying flour, food, medical equipment pharmaceutical drugs entered Gaza on Friday.
The UN has repeatedly said the amount of aid entering is nowhere near enough for the territory’s 2.1 million people – saying between 500 to 600 trucks a day are needed – and has called for Israel to allow in much more.
The limited amount of food that trickled into Gaza this week sparked chaotic scenes, with armed looters attacking an aid convoy and Palestinians crowding outside bakeries in a desperate attempt to obtain bread.
A UN-backed assessment this month said Gaza’s population was at “critical risk” of famine.
People in Gaza have told the BBC they have no food, and malnourished mothers are unable to breastfeed babies.
Chronic shortages of water are also worsening as desalination and hygiene plants are running out of fuel, and Israel’s expanding military offensive causes new waves of displacement.
Israel has said the blockade was intended to put pressure on Hamas to release the hostages still held in Gaza.
Israel has accused Hamas of stealing supplies, which the group has denied.
Israel launched a military campaign in Gaza in response to Hamas’s cross-border attack on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.
At least 53,901 people, including at least 16,500 children, have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory’s health ministry.
Additional reporting by David Gritten and Jaroslav Lukiv
In Gaza, the sound of drones can be heard everywhere.
An analysis by Al Jazeera’s digital investigations team, Sanad, has revealed that Israel is repurposing commercial drones to use as weapons of war in the Strip.
And as drones become ever more accessible, the line between their civilian use and their military use is becoming increasingly blurred.
Israel often labels anyone who criticises its devastating war on Gaza as ‘anti-Semtic’.
Israel has a long history of dismissing any legitimate criticism it faces as “anti-Semitic”.
So, how can anyone challenge Israel’s war on Gaza or its military raids in the occupied West Bank, without running the risk of being called anti-Semitic?
Or is this an easy way of shutting down any debate about Israel’s occupation?
Presenter: Tom McRae
Guests:
Phyllis Bennis – Fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies and international adviser at Jewish Voice for Peace
Saba-Nur Cheema – Political scientist at Goethe University Frankfurt
UN chief Antonio Guterres says Gazans are enduring “the cruelest phase” of the war. He denounced Israel’s blockade, calling the 400 trucks cleared to enter Gaza so far “a teaspoon of aid” when “a flood of assistance is required.”
Why resigning from the US government wasn’t enough for one official who stepped down.
Josh Paul, the first US official to resign over Israel’s war on Gaza, joins The Take to explain why he stepped down, his new efforts lobbying in Washington, DC, and why he believes that US support for Israel’s war fuels conflict abroad and makes Americans less safe at home.
Aid agencies have continued to criticise Israel after it announced it had sent a small convoy of trucks carrying vital supplies into Gaza.
COGAT, the Israeli military body responsible for civil affairs in the occupied Palestinian territory, confirmed on Friday that 107 trucks had entered the enclave the previous day, loaded with flour, medicine and equipment.
However, aid agencies and others have condemned Israel’s policy to allow only minimal volumes of aid into Gaza, which the Israeli military has been blockading for close to three months.
They insist that the supplies are nowhere near enough for the millions trapped in the territory, and add that even the small amounts making it in are not making it to people due to Israeli attacks and looting.
The shipments follow Israel’s announcement on Sunday that it would permit “minimal” humanitarian aid into the territory for the first time since implementing a total blockade in early March.
Amid warnings of mounting famine and humanitarian disaster, Israel said that the decision to allow aid into Gaza was driven by diplomatic concerns.
Global outrage has been rising as the 11-week siege has progressed, leaving Gaza’s 2.1 million people on the brink of starvation, with medicine and fuel supplies exhausted.
The United Nations’ Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Tom Fletcher has branded the aid deliveries “a drop in the ocean” and warned that far greater access is required to address the escalating crisis.
The UN estimates that at least 500 trucks of aid are needed daily. Since Monday’s announcement, only 300 trucks have made it in, including Thursday’s convoy, according to COGAT.
Attacks and looting
Aid agencies also state that even the aid that is being allowed into Gaza is not reaching people.
“Significant challenges in loading and dispatching goods remain due to insecurity, the risk of looting, delays in coordination approvals and inappropriate routes being provided by Israeli forces that are not viable for the movement of cargo,” the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said.
Hamas officials said on Friday that Israeli air strikes had killed at least six Palestinians guarding aid trucks against looters.
An umbrella network of Palestinian aid groups said that just 119 aid trucks have entered Gaza since Israel eased its blockade on Monday, and that distribution has been hampered by looting, including by armed groups of men.
“They stole food meant for children and families suffering from severe hunger,” the network said in a statement.
The UN’s World Food Programme said on Friday that 15 of its trucks were looted in southern Gaza while en route to WFP-supported bakeries.
‘Most people living off food scraps’
Inside Gaza, the situation continues to deteriorate.
Dr Ahmed al-Farrah of Nasser Hospital told Al Jazeera that the health system is overwhelmed.
“Most people now live off food scraps of what they had in stock,” he said. “I predict there will be many victims because of food insecurity.”
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’s spokesperson said aid is being distributed via UN mechanisms, but stressed the amount reaching Gaza “is not enough”.
The leaders of Britain, France and Canada warned Israel on Monday their countries would take action, including possible sanctions, if Israel did not lift aid restrictions.
“The Israeli Government’s denial of essential humanitarian assistance to the civilian population is unacceptable and risks breaching International Humanitarian Law,” a joint statement released by the British government said.
“We will not hesitate to take further action, including targeted sanctions,” it added.
In response, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office accused the trio of being “on the wrong side of history” and “supporting “mass murderers, rapists, baby killers and kidnappers”.
Doctors at the Nasser Hospital in Gaza are overwhelmed by a surge in the number of malnourished babies and children in urgent need of life-saving treatment. Israel’s months-long blockade has left medicine, food, and baby formula critically scarce.
After gunfire erupted outside a humanitarian aid event for Gaza at the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington late Wednesday, Yoni Kalin and his wife, JoJo, watched as museum security rushed attendees away from the doors and others who had just left came tumbling back in.
Among those who came in, Kalin said, was a man who appeared agitated, who Kalin and others in the museum first took for a protester, and who “walked right up” to police the moment they arrived, Kalin said.
“‘I did this for Gaza. Free Palestine,’” Kalin recalled the man telling the officers in an interview with The Times Thursday. “He went into his, ‘Free Palestine. There’s only one solution. Intifada revolution’ — you know, the usual chants.”
Kalin, a 31-year-old Washington, D.C., resident who works in biotech, said he still had no idea that two Israeli Embassy employees had been fatally shot outside. So when police started to pull the man away and he dropped a red kaffiyeh, or traditional Arab headdress, Kalin picked it up and tried to return it to him, he said.
The event that night — which Kalin’s wife had helped organize with the American Jewish Committee and the humanitarian aid groups Multifaith Alliance and IsraAID — had been “all about bridge building and humanitarian aid and support,” Kalin said, and he figured returning a protester’s kaffiyeh was in line with that ethos.
“I regret that now,” Kalin said Thursday morning, after a nearly restless night. “I regret touching it.”
Like so many other mourners across the nation, Kalin said he was having a hard time processing the “surreal, horrific” attack, and its occurring at an event aimed at boosting collaboration and understanding between Israelis, Palestinians and Americans.
“I don’t think him shouting ‘Free Palestine’ or ‘Free Gaza’ is going to actually help Palestinians or Gazans in this situation, especially given that he murdered people that are actually trying to help on the ground or contribute to these aid efforts,” Kalin said of the shooter. “It’s a really sick irony.”
Israeli officials identified the two victims as employees of the Israeli Embassy in Washington. Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said Yaron Lischinsky was an Israeli citizen and research assistant, and Sarah Milgrim was a U.S. citizen who organized visits and missions to Israel. Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Yechiel Leiter said the two were a couple, and that Lischinsky had recently purchased a ring and planned to propose to Milgrim next week in Jerusalem.
U.S. authorities called the shooting an “act of terror” and identified the suspect as Elias Rodriguez, 31, of Chicago. Metropolitan Police Chief Pamela Smith said Rodriguez was seen pacing outside the museum before the shooting, and was later detained by security after walking inside.
Dan Bongino, deputy director of the FBI, said the agency was “aware of certain writings allegedly authored by the suspect, and we hope to have updates as to the authenticity very soon.” He said Rodriguez had been interviewed by law enforcement early Thursday morning, and that the FBI did not believe there was any ongoing threat to the public.
President Trump, who spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday, and U.S. Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi have both promised justice in the shooting.
“These horrible D.C. killings, based obviously on antisemitism, must end, NOW!” Trump posted on social media. “Hatred and Radicalism have no place in the USA.”
Israel Bachar, Israel’s consul general for the U.S. Pacific Southwest, based in Los Angeles, said security has been increased at consul facilities and at other Jewish institutions, with the help of American law enforcement and local police.
The shooting comes amid Israel’s latest major offensive in the Gaza Strip in a war since Oct. 7, 2023, when Israel was attacked by the Palestinian militant group Hamas.
The attack, launched from Gaza, killed 1,200 people, while Hamas claimed about 250 hostages. Israel’s response has devastated Gaza and killed more than 53,000 people, mostly women and children, according to local health authorities.
U.S. Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi visits the site of the shooting outside the Capital Jewish Museum on Thursday.
(Tasos Katopodis / Getty Images)
About 90% of the territory’s roughly 2 million population has been displaced. Much of urban Gaza has been bombed out and destroyed, and Israel has blocked huge amounts of aid from entering the territory, sparking a massive hunger crisis. Protests of Israel’s actions have spread around the world and in the U.S., which is a major arms supplier to Israel.
Brian Levin, founder of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at Cal State San Bernardino, said that for decades, antisemitic and anti-Muslim attacks have increased in the U.S. when conflicts arise in the Middle East — and Israel’s current war is no exception.
“With the worst conflict the region has seen in years, with a horrifying loss of life and moving images of the suffering taking place in Gaza, what ends up happening is the soil gets soft for antisemitism,” Levin said.
In recent years especially, the spread of such imagery — and of misinformation — on social media has produced “a rabbit-hole where people can get increasingly radicalized,” and where calls for retribution against anyone even tangentially connected to a disfavored group can drown out messages for peace, compassion and aid, Levin said.
“We have unfortunately been caught in a time when the peaceful interfaith voices have been washed over like a tsunami, leaving a vacuum that allows conflict overseas to generate bigotry and violence here,” he said. “We see that again and again — we saw that with 9/11 — where communities become stereotyped and broad-brushed and labeled in certain niches as legitimate target for aggression, and that feeds upon itself like a fire, where you end up having totally innocent people being murdered.”
Several organizations have described Lischinsky and Milgrim as being committed to peace and humanitarian aid work. Kalin said many of the people at the museum event were — and will continue to be.
“This act of violence just makes me want to build bridges even stronger. I think we need to strengthen the coalition. We need more Muslims, we need more Christians, we need more Israelis, we need more Palestinians,” Kalin said. “We need people that believe that peace is the answer — and that hate and violence isn’t going to solve this issue.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has often tried to paint himself as a close friend of United States President Donald Trump, but the relationship has rarely been as straightforward as the Israeli premier has portrayed it.
And recently, speculation across the Israeli media that the relationship between the two leaders, and by extension, their countries, has begun to unravel is becoming unavoidable.
Some idea of the gap was apparent in Trump’s recent Middle East trip, which saw him visit Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates but not Israel, the state that has typically been the US’s closest ally within the region.
Likewise, US negotiations with two of Israel’s fiercest regional opponents, Iran and the Houthi rebels in Yemen, have been taking place without any apparent input from Israel, a country that has always regarded itself as central to such matters. Lastly, against a growing chorus of international condemnation over Israel’s actions in Gaza, there was the decision of US Vice President JD Vance to cancel a planned visit to Israel for apparently “logistical” reasons.
Appearing on national television earlier this month, Israeli commentator Dana Fahn Luzon put it succinctly: “Trump is signalling to Netanyahu, ‘Honey, I’ve had enough of you.’”
United States President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hold a joint press conference in Washington, DC, the US on February 4, 2025 [Celal Gunes/Anadolu Agency]
“We’re seeing a total breakdown of everything that might be of benefit to Israel,” Mitchell Barak, an Israeli pollster and former political aide to several senior Israeli political figures, including Netanyahu, told Al Jazeera. “America was once our closest ally; now we don’t seem to have a seat at the table. This should be of concern to every single Israeli.”
‘Many Israelis blame Netanyahu for this,” Barak continued. “He always presented Trump as somehow being in his pocket, and it’s pretty clear Trump didn’t like that. Netanyahu crossed a line.”
‘No better friend’
While concern over a potential rift may be growing within Israel, prominent voices in the US administration are stressing the strength of their alliance.
Last Sunday, President Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, said that, while the US was keen to avert what he called a “humanitarian crisis” in Gaza, he didn’t think there was “any daylight between President Trump’s position and Prime Minister Netanyahu’s position”.
Police guard the entrance to Columbia University as protesters rally in support of detained Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil, March 14, 2025, in New York City, the US [File: Jason DeCrow/AP]
Also doubling down on the US’s commitment to Israel was White House National Security Council spokesperson James Hewitt, who dismissed reports that the Trump administration was preparing to “abandon” Israel if it continues with its war on Gaza, telling Israeli media that “Israel has had no better friend in its history than President Trump”.
The Trump administration has also been active in shutting down criticism of Israel’s war on Gaza in public spheres and specifically on US college campuses.
Several international students have also been arrested and deported for their support of Palestine, including Rumeysa Ozturk, whose arrest as she was walking on a street in a Boston suburb for an opinion piece co-authored in a student newspaper was described by Human Rights Watch as “chilling”.
Protesters gather outside a federal court during a hearing with lawyers for Rumeysa Ozturk, a Tufts University student from Turkiye who was detained by US immigration authorities, April 3, 2025 in Boston, Massachusetts, the US [File: Rodrique Ngowi/AP]
Spatting
Those policies have made it clear that the Trump administration sits firmly in Israel’s corner. And looking back at Trump’s policies in his first presidential term, that is not surprising.
Trump fulfilled many of the Israeli right’s dreams in that term, between 2017 and 2021, including recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, despite its eastern half being occupied Palestinian territory, recognising the annexation of the Golan Heights, despite it being occupied Syrian territory, and pulling out of the Iran nuclear deal.
But those actions are partly to blame for the bumpy relationship between Trump and Netanyahu, with the US president reportedly resentful of what he saw as a lack of gratitude for those pro-Israel policies.
Trump was also furious after Netanyahu congratulated former US President Joe Biden following his 2020 election victory over Trump, which the current president still disputes.
“The first person that congratulated [Biden] was Bibi [Benjamin] Netanyahu, the man that I did more for than any other person I dealt with. … Bibi could have stayed quiet. He has made a terrible mistake,” Trump said in an interview in 2021.
Nevertheless, in the build-up to the 2024 US election, Netanyahu and his allies actively courted candidate Trump, believing him to be the best means of fulfilling their agenda and continuing their war on Gaza, analysts said.
“Netanyahu had really campaigned for Trump before the election, emphasising how bad Biden was,” Yossi Mekelberg, an Associate Fellow at Chatham House, said.
“Now they don’t know which way Trump’s going to go because he’s so contractual. He’s all about the win,” Mekelberg added, referring to the series of victories the president claimed during his recent Gulf tour, adding, “but there’s no win in Palestine”.
A protester holds a placard ahead of a planned meeting between US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, outside the US Consulate in Tel Aviv, Israel, February 3, 2025 [File: Antonio Denti/Reuters]
Across the Israeli press and media, a consensus is taking hold that Trump has simply tired of trying to secure a “win” or an end to the war on Gaza that Netanyahu and his allies on the Israeli hard right have no interest in pursuing.
Israeli Army Radio has even carried reports that Trump has blocked direct contact from Netanyahu over concerns that the Israeli prime minister may be trying to manipulate him.
Quoting an unnamed Israeli official, Yanir Cozin, a reporter with Israeli Army Radio, wrote on X: “There’s nothing Trump hates more than being portrayed as a sucker and someone being played, so he decided to cut off contact.”
“There’s a sense in Israel that Trump’s turned on Netanyahu,” political analyst Nimrod Flaschenberg said from Tel Aviv. “Supporters of Netanyahu are panicking, as they all previously thought that Trump’s backing was unlimited.”
What now?
A break in relations between Netanyahu and Trump might not mean an automatic break between Israel and the US, Flaschenberg cautioned, with all factions across the Israeli political spectrum speculating on what the future may hold under a realigned relationship with the US.
US financial, military and diplomatic support for Israel has been a bedrock of both countries’ foreign policy for decades, Mekelberg said. Moreover, whatever Trump’s current misgivings about his relationship with Netanyahu, support for Israel, while diminishing, remains hardwired into much of his Republican base, analysts and polls have noted, and particularly among Republican – and Democratic – donors.
US President Donald Trump has long been a strong supporter of Israel [File: Jim Watson/AFP]
“Those opposed to Netanyahu and the war are hoping that the US may now apply a lasting ceasefire,” Flaschenberg said, with reference to Israeli reliance upon US patronage. “That’s not because of any great faith in Trump, but more the extent of their dismay in the current government.”
However, equally present are those on the hard right, such as Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who Mekelberg speculated may also hope to take advantage of whatever direction US policy towards Israel heads in.
“Ben-Gvir, Smotrich and their backers could take advantage of American disinterest, depending upon what shape it takes,” Mekelberg told Al Jazeera. “If the US continues to provide weapons and diplomatic cover in the UN while letting [Israel] get on with it, then that’s their dream,” he said of Smotrich, who has reassured his backers that allowing minimal aid into the besieged enclave did not mean that Israel would stop “destroying everything that’s left of the Gaza Strip”.
However, where Netanyahu may figure in this is uncertain.
Accusations that the Israeli prime minister has become reliant upon the war to sustain the political coalition he needs to remain in office and avoid both a legal reckoning in his corruption trial, as well as a political reckoning over his government’s failures ahead of the October 7, 2023 attack, are both widespread and longstanding.
“I don’t know if Netanyahu can come back from this,” Barak said, still uncertain about whether the prime minister can demonstrate his survival skills once again. “There’s a lot of talk about Netanyahu being at the end of his line. I don’t know. They’ve been saying that for years, and he’s still here. They were saying that when I was his aide, but I can’t see any more magic tricks that are available to him.”
