US President Joe Biden responded on Tuesday to the incident in which a swastika was found carved into an elevator at the State Department building.
“Let me be clear: Anti-Semitism has no place in the State Department, in my Administration, or anywhere in the world. It’s up to all of us to give hate no safe harbor and stand up to bigotry wherever we find it,” he wrote on Twitter.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who is Jewish, condemned the incident in an email to State Department employees on Tuesday.
"The hateful graffiti has been removed and this incident will be investigated," Blinken wrote, calling anti-Semitism an "abhorrent" hatred that "has no place in the United States, at the State Department or anywhere else."
"To our Jewish colleagues: please know how grateful we are for your service and how proud we are to be your colleagues," he added.
Blinken was not at the State Department at the time of the incident, but is on a trip to India and Kuwait.
Israeli Ambassador to the US Gilad Erdan reacted to the discovery by saying: "The swastika etched in the State Department is a serious incident of anti-Semitic vandalism, which once again shows that anti-Semitism does not distinguish between Jews in Israel and Jews in America, and harms not only Israel but the entire world. We must fight together resolutely against anti-Semitism of any kind and bring to justice anyone who acts out of hatred for the Jewish people."