Aaron Bushnell, 25, says in a video he livestreamed from outside the Israeli embassy in Washington D.C. that he will "no longer be complicit in genocide" before setting himself on fire.
The man who set himself on fire in front of the Israeli embassy in Washington D.C. to protest the U.S. armed forces' cooperation with Israel in the ongoing conflict in Gaza died on Sunday night as a result of his injuries.
Aaron Bushnell, 25, an active member of the U.S. Air Force from Austin, Texas, arrived at the embassy around 1 p.m. on Sunday and proceeded to start a livestream on the social networking app Twitch.
That video has since been removed from the platform but Inside Edition Digital was able to watch in part before it was take down.
"I'm about to engage in an extreme act of protest," Bushnell declares at one point in the video. "But compared to what people have been experiencing in Palestine at the hands of their colonizers, it’s not extreme at all."
Bushnell also says he will "no longer be complicit in genocide" at one point in the video.
Soon after saying those words, he opens a metal bottle and pours a clear liquid substance all over his body. Bushnell then lights himself in fire and begins to scream: "Free Palestine" in the video.
Authorities were nearby and rushed to put out the flames The video shows that they managed to do this in about a minute, but it was too late.
Bushnell died later that day.
When asked for comment, a U.S. Air Force spokesperson would only say that the incident on Sunday did involve "an active duty airman."
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