U.S. Air Force Member Passes Away After Setting Himself On Fire Outside Israeli Embassy in D.C.

The U.S. Air Force airman who set himself on fireplace outdoors the Israeli Embassy as a purported demonstration towards the Israel-Hamas battle has handed away.

Police have recognized the airman as 25-year-old Aaron Bushnell from San Antonio. Clad in army apparel, Bushnell recorded himself shouting “Free Palestine” earlier than falling to the bottom. Throughout a livestream, he condemned the Israeli offensive in Gaza as “genocide” and in contrast his actions to the immense struggling endured by the Palestinian inhabitants. Shortly after, he positioned his cellphone apart, poured a liquid from a water bottle over his head, and ignited himself.

The District of Columbia Fire and Emergency Medical Service Division obtained a report concerning a person engulfed in flames outdoors the embassy shortly earlier than 1 p.m. on Sunday. Nonetheless, in response to D.C. Fire and EMS, upon the arrival of firefighters, the Secret Service had already extinguished the flames. Bushnell was transported to a hospital with life-threatening accidents, the place he finally succumbed to them.

An Air Force spokesperson verified that Bushnell was certainly an active-duty Air Force officer. In accordance with his LinkedIn profile, Bushnell was additionally pursuing a profession as a software program engineer, describing himself as an “aspiring software engineer” who had been employed at a San Antonio-based firm referred to as DevOps from March 2023 till just lately.

A number of people have provided their condolences within the feedback part of the publish. Moreover, Hamas referred to Bushnell as “the heroic pilot” in an announcement, regardless of no obvious proof suggesting that the airman supported the Palestinian militant group.

However, the Israeli Embassy in Washington reported that none of its workers members sustained accidents. Bushnell’s passing occurred amidst the continuing Israel-Hamas battle, which has now prolonged into its fourth month.