US airman sets himself on fire outside Israeli embassy in Washington
WASHINGTON - A US military service member set himself on fire, in an apparent act of protest against the war in Gaza, outside the Israeli Embassy in Washington on Sunday afternoon, authorities said. The man was transported to an area hospital after the fire was put out by US Secret Service officers, DC Fire and EMS posted online.
The man remains in critical condition, a Metropolitan Police Department spokesperson said on Sunday afternoon.
An Air Force spokesperson confirmed that the incident involved an active duty airman.
“I will no longer be complicit in genocide,” said the man, wearing military fatigues, in a video he broadcasted live over the internet, according to the New York Times. He then doused himself in a clear liquid and set himself on fire, screaming “Free Palestine,” the Times reported.
Local police and Secret Service are investigating the incident.
The shocking act came as protests are increasing
across the United States against Israel’s actions in Gaza, where it is waging a retaliatory war for an attack on October 7 by Hamas militants.
With the death toll in Gaza nearing 30,000, according to the Hamas-run health ministry there, international pressure has been increasing on the United States to rein its ally Israel in and call for a ceasefire.
Meanwhile, Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh said yesterday he was resigning to allow for the formation of a broad consensus among Palestinians about political arrangements following Israel’s war
against the Islamist group Hamas in Gaza.
The move comes amid growing US pressure on President Mahmoud Abbas to shake up the Palestinian Authority as international efforts have intensified to stop the fighting in Gaza and begin work on a political structure to govern the enclave after the war.
His resignation must still be accepted by Abbas, who may ask him to stay on as caretaker until a permanent replacement is appointed. In a statement to cabinet, Shtayyeh, an academic economist who took office in 2019, said the next stage would need to take account of the emerging reality in Gaza, which has been laid waste by nearly five months of heavy fighting.
He said the next stage would “require new governmental and political arrangements that take into account the emerging reality in the Gaza Strip, the national unity talks, and the urgent need for an inter-Palestinian consensus.”
In addition, it would require “the extension of the Authority’s authority over the entire land, Palestine.” The Palestinian Authority, formed 30 years ago under the interim Oslo peace accords, exercises limited governance over parts of the occupied West Bank but lost power in Gaza following a struggle with Hamas in 2007.