On February 25, 2024, Aaron Bushnell committed self-immolation on a live stream outside the Israeli Embassy in Washington DC due to his distress caused by the ongoing war in Gaza.
Twenty-five-year-old Aaron Bushnell, a U.S airman died after setting himself on fire in front of the Israeli embassy in Washington DC on Sunday. Mr. Bushnell, wearing an Air Force uniform in a video broadcast live on Twitch, identified himself as a member of the “Air Force”.
During the live stream, Bushnell walked toward the Israeli Embassy with a bottle of flammable fluid in his hand. After placing his phone on the ground Bushnell walked to the embassy gate and doused himself with the flammable liquid while chanting “Free Palestine” as he struggled to light himself. Before setting himself alight in what he called an “extreme act of protest,” he said he would “no longer be complicit in genocide.”
As Bushnell shouted in pain, an off-camera law enforcement officer yelled at him to “get on the ground.” A second officer shouted at the first “I don’t need guns, I need fire extinguishers.” The D.C fire and EMS arrived on the scene. However, seven hours after being transported to the hospital, Bushnell did not make it.
Prior to the live stream, Bushnell sent emails to journalists and left-wing anarchist news outlets. The BBC obtained a copy of one of the emails from the Atlanta community press collective. Bushnell wrote, “Today, I am planning to engage in an extreme act of protest against the genocide of the Palestinian people.” The email would be “highly disturbing.”
More so, on Sunday, hours before he went to the Israeli embassy, Bushnell texted a friend who shared the message with the Post. “I hope you’ll understand. I love you,” Bushnell wrote. “This doesn’t even make sense, but I feel like I’m going to miss you.” The Air Force declined to comment on Mr. Bushnell’s service status, citing family notification regulations. However, Star and Striped, a military newspaper, confirmed that he did indeed serve as a senior airman.
In many ways, Bushnell’s extreme act of protest was a continuation of a long line of similarly desperate actions designed to incite public outrage in the name of justice, in Bushnell’s case, justice for Palestinians.
