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W H AT W E K NOW U P D A T E D 7 : 5 5 P. M .

What We Know About

the Man Who Self-
Immolated in Front of
the Israeli Embassy
By Matt Stieb, Intelligencer staff writer

Photo: Twitter

On Sunday afternoon outside the Israeli

Embassy in Washington, D.C., 25-year-old
Air Force service member Aaron Bushnell
placed his phone on the ground to set up a
livestream. He then stood before the
embassy gates and lit himself on fire while
shouting “Free Palestine” in a horrific and
ultimately deadly protest against the Israel-
Hamas war in Gaza. Below is everything we
know about Bushnell, who died from his
wounds on Sunday night.

Aaron Bushnell’s background

Bushnell was a 25-year-old member of the
U.S. Air Force stationed in San Antonio and
originally from Cape Cod in Massachusetts.
He joined the Air Force as an active-duty
member in May 2020 and has since worked
in information technology and development
operations. On his LinkedIn page, Bushnell
wrote that he was looking to “transition out
of the US Air Force into software
engineering.”

The self-immolation at the

embassy
Hours before lighting himself on fire,
Bushnell posted a Twitch link on his
Facebook page with the caption:

Many of us like to ask ourselves, “What

would I do if I was alive during slavery?
Or the Jim Crow South? Or apartheid?
What would I do if my country was
committing genocide?”

The answer is, you’re doing it. Right now.

Shortly before 1 p.m. on Sunday, Bushnell

began his livestream and walked toward the
Israeli Embassy with an insulated water
bottle full of flammable fluid. “I will no
longer be complicit in genocide,” he said in
his video. “I am about to engage in an
extreme act of protest. But compared to
what people have been experiencing in
Palestine at the hands of their colonizers, it’s
not extreme at all. This is what our ruling
class has decided will be normal.”

Bushnell then placed his phone on the

ground and walked to the gates of the
embassy, where he doused himself in liquid
from the bottle. “Free Palestine,” he said, as
he struggled to light himself. A law-
enforcement officer approached, asking,
“Can I help you, sir?” At this point, Bushnell
lit himself on fire, screaming, “Free
Palestine.”

As Bushnell screamed in pain, a law-

enforcement officer off-camera yells at him
to “get on the ground.” A second officer
yelled at the first: “I don’t need guns, I need
fire extinguishers.” By the time D.C. Fire and
EMS arrived on the scene, the fire had been
put out.

The aftermath and Bushnell’s

death
An incident report filed by a Secret Service
agent states that they “received a distress
call regarding an individual exhibiting signs
of mental distress outside the Israeli
embassy.” (The Secret Service is responsible
for foreign-embassy security.) “Before the
Secret Service officers could engage,
[Bushnell] doused himself with an
unidentified liquid and set himself on fire.
The Secret Service officers promptly
intervened, extinguishing the flames before
the arrival of the fire department.
[Bushnell] was subsequently transported to
a local hospital due to the burns sustained
from the incident. The report states that
Bushnell was pronounced dead at 10:06
p.m. on Sunday.”

In the hours before his death, Bushnell

emailed several left-leaning websites
alerting them to his “highly disturbing” final
act. “Today, I am planning to engage in an
extreme act of protest against the genocide
of the Palestinian people,” read the email,
which was forwarded to the BBC.

Bushnell’s video was taken down by Twitch

for violating its terms of service, though
edited versions blurring out his burning
figure are circulating on social media. The
Secret Service and the Bureau of Alcohol,
Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives are
investigating the incident along with the
Metropolitan Police Department. Prior to
his death, he emailed several left-leaning
websites, stating that he was “planning to
engage in an extreme act of protest against
the genocide of the Palestinian people

Bushnell’s act was not the first self-

immolation in apparent protest of the
Israel-Hamas war. In December, a woman
lit herself on fire in front of the Israeli
Consulate in Atlanta in what police
described as an act of “extreme political
protest” over the war. The woman survived,
but sustained third-degree burns over her
entire body and was hospitalized in critical
condition. Her identity has not been
released by police. A 61-year-old Army
veteran who worked as a security guard at
the consulate suffered severe burns when he
attempted to save the woman.

Since the Vietnam War, self-immolation has

been a dramatic but rare act of protest in the
U.S.

This post has been updated.

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