US Air Force member dies of horror injuries after setting himself ablaze in front of D.C. Israeli Embassy in protest
THE active duty member of the US Air Force who set himself on fire outside the Israel Embassy in Washington, DC, has died.
The airman screamed “Free Palestine” during an apparent protest of the Israel-Hamas War before collapsing outside the embassy Sunday afternoon.
His name hasn’t been released because officials are still notifying the next of kin of his death.
However, chilling videos and photos shared on social media showed the man introducing himself as Aaron Bushnell while saying he could “no longer be complicit in genocide.”
The airman, who livestreamed the protest on the social media platform Twitch, said that what he was about to do was minimal compared to the suffering of Palestinians.
Bushnell reportedly sent an email to several reporters on Sunday morning that read, “Today, I am planning to engage in an extreme act of protest” regarding the war in Gaza.
Video of the horror death showed him dousing himself in a liquid from a metal bottle before lighting himself on fire and shouting his support for the Middle Eastern nation.
He burned for about one minute before collapsing to the ground.
First responders raced to the scene at about 1 pm and found that the Secret Service’s uniformed division had put out the fire.
The airman was taken to the hospital with grave injuries and died hours later.
No embassy staff members were injured, and everyone was accounted for afterward, according to an embassy spokesperson.
Bushnell was dressed in fatigues, and his name could be seen on his uniform in the video.
A LinkedIn profile for someone with the same name shows that he was an Air Force officer based in Texas.
The fatal protest comes four months after war broke out between Israel and the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas.
On October 7, Hamas attacked Israeli civilians in the Gaza Strip who were observing the Jewish holiday Yom Kippur.
Since then, Israel has returned fire with shocking force, claiming the lives of an estimated 28,473 Palestinians, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
Over 1,200 Israelis have died in the bloody four-month conflict and an estimated 1.7 million Gaza residents have been displaced.
Protests have raged across the country since October, and another woman was critically injured after lighting herself on fire outside the Israeli consulate in Atlanta, Georgia, in December.
Shows of support for Palestine on Ivy League campuses have been heavily criticized, with the University of Pennsylvania president stepping down after she was questioned by the Supreme Court over protests.
Israel is moving toward a ceasefire deal with Hamas, which could mean that hundreds of Palestinian prisoners will be released, according to reports.
The nation is set to send another delegation to Qatar to continue negotiating the final details this week, following a meeting in Paris over the weekend.
If you or someone you know is affected by any of the issues raised in this story, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-TALK (8255), chat on 988lifeline.org, or text Crisis Text Line at 741741.