US soldier dies after being set on fire outside the Israeli embassy in protest against the war in Gaza. A US Air Force soldier has died after being set on fire outside the Israeli embassy in Washington. On Sunday, in apparent protest of the ongoing Israel-Hamas war, which he described as a “genocide.”
The Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) identified the deceased demonstrator in a statement to TIME on Monday as 25-year-old Aaron Bushnell, whose identity and death were first reported on social media by independent journalist Talia Jane.
Bushnell, who was wearing fatigues on Sunday in Washington, was a DevOps engineer based in San Antonio, Texas, according to his LinkedIn profile.
DC Fire and EMS initially said in a post on X on Sunday that it transported an adult male in critical condition to an area hospital after being dispatched at 12:58 p.M. on the incident in front of the Israeli embassy, in which it turned out that the fire had already been extinguished by members of the American secret services present on site. Secret Service spokesman Joe Routh told TIME in a statement that officers from his uniformed unit responded to what appeared to be "an individual in a potential medical/mental health emergency."”
Embassy spokesperson Tal Naim told media outlets that no embassy personnel were injured. MPD told TIME that it is working with the Secret Service and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) to investigate the incident. MPD said in an earlier post on X that it also investigated a suspicious vehicle near the scene but that no hazardous materials were found. Spokespersons for the U.S.The Air Force confirmed to CNN, the New York Times and the Washington Post that the man who set himself on fire before publicly revealing his identity was an active-duty airman.
Defense Department guidelines state that active-duty soldiers “should not engage in partisan political activities.” Military regulations also prohibit wearing the uniform during “unofficial public speeches, interviews, picketing, marches, rallies, or other public demonstrations that would constitute sanction or endorsement of the by the [Department of Defense] or the military on duty.”
reportedly sent a message to the media before setting himself on fire. “Today I intend to carry out an extreme act of protest against the genocide of the Palestinian people,” he warned. He also wrote on Facebook Sunday morning: “Many of us like to ask ourselves, ‘What would I have done if I had lived in slavery?’ Or the Jim Crow South? Or apartheid? What would I do if my country committed genocide? The answer is: you do. Right now.” The post included a link to a live stream of his protest on the web-broadcasting platform Twitch, which took down the video for violations of its community guidelines and terms of service.
“I will no longer participate in genocide. “I intend to commit an extreme act of protest,” the airman repeated in the document reviewed by TIME as he walked up the driveway of the Israeli Embassy. “But compared to what the people of Palestine experienced at the hands of their colonizers, it is not extreme at all. Our ruling class has deemed this normal.
After Bushnell doused himself with liquid and grabbed a lighter, unidentified police or security officers were heard asking, "Can I help you?"After lighting the fire, Bushnell repeatedly shouted “Liberate Palestine.” Protests against Israeli military actions in Gaza as well as U.S. support for Israel have increased worldwide since the war broke out following the Oct. 7 attack by the Palestinian militant group Hamas that killed about 1,200 people, according to Israeli officials. The Hamas-supervised health ministry in Gaza said around 30,000 people were killed in Israeli shelling of the enclave.
Israeli diplomatic missions have become permanent sites of protest against the war in the Middle East, and this is not the first time that someone outside their missions has set their bodies on fire.
Self-immolation is an ancient form of protest that gained particular prominence during the Vietnam War and in Tunisia during the Arab Spring.
In December, an unidentified person carrying a Palestinian flag remained in critical condition after setting himself on fire outside the Israeli consulate in Atlanta.