Air force serviceman sets himself on fire outside Israeli embassy in Washington DC
A man identified as a US air force member was left in a critical condition after setting himself on fire outside the Israeli embassy in Washington DC, authorities said.
The Metropolitan police department said it responded to an incident on International Drive around 1pm on Sunday to assist the Secret Service. Fire and emergency services said the man had serious burns.
“An adult male was transported by DC fire and EMS [emergency medical services] to a local hospital where they remain in critical condition,” the police department said on Twitter/X.
A video posted online showed a man in a uniform shouting “Free Palestine” as he burned while identifying himself as an active air force member. The man was reportedly on fire for about a minute before law enforcement put it out.
The unnamed man walked up to the embassy and began livestreaming on the video streaming platform Twitch, a person familiar with the matter told the Associated Press. The man set his phone down and then doused himself in a fluid and setting it alight, saying at one point, he “will no longer be complicit in genocide” the source told AP. The video was later removed from the streaming platform.
An air force spokesperson confirmed to Agence France-Presse that the man was an active member but gave no further details. A spokesperson for the Israeli embassy said no staff were injured and the man was “unknown” to them.
The police said an explosive ordinance disposal unit was called to the scene in relation to a suspicious vehicle possibly linked to the individual. No hazardous material was found.
The embassy has been the focus of protests by pro-Palestinian demonstrators calling for a ceasefire to the Israeli military offensive in Gaza, in which the claimed death toll appears likely to pass 30,000 this week. The offensive follows cross-border attacks in Israel by Hamas in 7 October that killed about 1,200 people and in which more than 200 people were taken hostage.
Israeli strikes have killed 29,692 Palestinians in Gaza since October, twothirds of them women and children, and injured 69,879, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health service.
In a separate incident in December last year in Atlanta outside an Israeli consulate office, a protester set themselves on fire. The protester and a guard were hopsitalized with burns.