Air Force Member In Critical Condition After Setting Himself On Fire Outside Israeli Embassy In DC

An active-duty mem­ber of the U.S. Air Force was crit­i­cal­ly injured Sunday after set­ting him­self ablaze out­side the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C., while declar­ing that he “will no longer be com­plic­it in geno­cide,” a per­son famil­iar with the mat­ter told The Associated Press.The man, whose name wasn’t imme­di­ate­ly released, walked up to the embassy short­ly before 1 p.m. and began livestream­ing on the video stream­ing plat­form Twitch, the per­son said. Law enforce­ment offi­cials believe the man start­ed a livestream, set his phone down and then doused him­self in accel­er­ant and ignit­ed the flames. At one point, he said he “will no longer be com­plic­it in geno­cide,” the per­son said. The video was lat­er removed from the plat­form, but law enforce­ment offi­cials have obtained and reviewed a copy.
The per­son was not autho­rized to dis­cuss details of the ongo­ing inves­ti­ga­tion pub­licly and spoke to the AP on con­di­tion of anonymity.

Police did not imme­di­ate­ly pro­vide any addi­tion­al details about the inci­dent. The inci­dent hap­pened as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is seek­ing the cab­i­net approval for a mil­i­tary oper­a­tion in the south­ern Gazan city of Rafah while a tem­po­rary cease-fire deal is being nego­ti­at­ed. Israel’s mil­i­tary offen­sive in Gaza, how­ev­er, has drawn crit­i­cisms, includ­ing geno­cide claims against the Palestinians. Israel has adamant­ly denied the geno­cide alle­ga­tions and says it is car­ry­ing out oper­a­tions in accor­dance with inter­na­tion­al law in the Israel-Hamas war. In December, a per­son self-immo­lat­ed out­side the Israeli con­sulate in Atlanta and used gaso­line as an accel­er­ant, accord­ing to Atlanta’s fire author­i­ties. A Palestinian flag was found at the scene, and the act was believed to be one of “extreme polit­i­cal protest.” In a state­ment, the Metropolitan Police Department in Washington said its offi­cers had respond­ed to the scene out­side the Israeli Embassy to assist U.S. Secret Service offi­cers and that its bomb squad had also been called to exam­ine a sus­pi­cious vehi­cle. Police said no haz­ardous mate­ri­als were found in the vehicle.(AP)