On July 4, limousine driver Hesham Mohamed Hadayet shot and killed two people at the ticket counter of Israel's El Al Airlines at Los Angeles International Airport before El Al security officials shot him dead. Hadayet was an Egyptian immigrant who, press reports soon revealed, had told a friend that "the Israelis tried to destroy the Egyptian nation and the Egyptian population by sending prostitutes with AIDS to Egypt." Hadayet had also voiced displeasure at a neighbor's patriotic display following the September 11 attacks. Regardless, the FBI announced that there was no evidence the shooting was a terrorist attack, and investigators were not sure it could even be categorized as a hate crime.

†