An active-duty airman has died after authorities say he set himself on fire Sunday outside the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C., in what he described as “an extreme act of protest” over the Israel-Hamas war.
The man was identified by the Metropolitan Police Department as 25-year-old Aaron Bushnell of San Antonio. The Air Force confirmed to ABC News that Bushnell was on active-duty status at the time of his fatal protest.
The incident unfolded just before 1 p.m. ET outside the gates of the Israeli Embassy in northwest Washington, according to statements from the city’s Metropolitan Police Department and Fire and Emergency Medical Services Department.
An unedited recording of the video Bushnell livestreamed to Twitch Sunday, showing him dressed in camouflage fatigues and walking up to the embassy gate before dousing himself in a flammable liquid and setting himself on fire.
During the livestream, Bushnell is heard saying “I will no longer be complicit in genocide” and repeatedly screamed “free Palestine” as flames engulfed his body.
“We arrived to find an apparent adult male who had been on fire,” the Fire and EMS Department said in its statement.
Members of the US Secret Service’s Uniformed Division extinguished the flames before fire crews arrived, officials said.
Bushnell was unconscious when he was taken to a hospital with life-threatening injuries, according to police.
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