(NewsNation) — Mike Huckabee, the U.S. ambassador to Israel, said Thursday that the fatal shooting of two Israeli Embassy staffers Wednesday evening in Washington, D.C., has been a “gut-punch” to the people of the Middle Eastern nation.

“It has caused people (in Israel) to just really wonder what has happened to this world where antisemitism has turned from hideous and hateful rhetoric into this level of violence,” Huckabee told NewsNation’s “Elizabeth Vargas Reports.”

Yaron Lischinsky, a 30-year-old Israeli citizen, and Sarah Milgrim, a 26-year-old from Kansas, were killed outside the Capital Jewish Museum following a reception. The couple, who were soon to be engaged, were in a group of four leaving the event when they were approached by a gunman and shot.

Authorities have identified the suspected shooter as 30-year-old Elias Rodriguez of Chicago. Police say after his arrest, Rodriguez chanted, “Free, free Palestine.” He appeared in court Thursday and was charged with first-degree murder and the murder of foreign officials. The FBI will investigate the killings as a hate crime, and Rodriguez could face the death penalty.

The next hearing in the case is scheduled for June 18.

President Donald Trump, who appointed Huckabee ambassador to Israel, wrote on social media, “These horrible D.C. killings, based obviously on antisemitism, must end, NOW! Hatred and Radicalism have no place in the USA.”

Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu referred to the alleged shooter as a “terrorist,” comparing Rodriguez to the Hamas militants who attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

“Jewish people have to feel as if there’s a level of blind, irrational hate,” Huckabee told Vargas, “and I think it’s incumbent upon all of us to push back hard against this hideous antisemitism that has captured our college campuses, the streets of America and, quite frankly, around the world.”