A US Air Force active member, Aaron Bushnell, has burned himself alive outside the Israeli embassy in Washington on Sunday, in a protest of the ongoing Israel-Hamas war, which he described as a “genocide.”
In a post by the capital’s fire department on X, the emergency responders rushed to the scene just before 1:00 pm in response to a “call for person on fire outside the Israeli Embassy”
When they arrived, the fire had already been put out by agents of the US law enforcement organization known as the Secret Service, which is in charge of guarding visiting heads of state and other influential Americans.
The fire department said the man was taken to the hospital with “critical life-threatening injuries”
A spokesperson for the Israeli embassy said no staff were injured in the incident, and that the man was “unknown” to them.
The US media reported that the man apparently livestreamed himself on Twitch, wearing fatigues and declaring he will “not be complicit in genocide” before dousing himself in liquid.
He then lit himself on fire while yelling “Free Palestine!” until he fell on the ground.
With the New York Times reporting that the footage was removed from Twitch, there was no way to immediately verify it.
The incident occurred at a time when anti-Israel protests are spreading across the country as Israel is waging a retaliatory war in Gaza in response to an attack by Hamas militants on October 7.
Chioma Kalu
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