"I would have tried with all my might to talk Aaron Bushnell out of killing himself because things do get better and I would have liked for this courageous and beautiful soul to have lived to see that. He was the epitome of a soldier. Memory eternal, dear Aaron." Nancy Harb Almendras
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| from Palestine- Hanan Ashrawi |
Who was Aaron Bushnell?
"Aaron Bushnell — the Air Force engineer who died hours after lighting himself on fire outside the Israeli Embassy in DC on Sunday — was a 25-year-old IT engineer-in-training who hailed from a tiny Massachusetts town.
Bushnell livestreamed his gruesome final moments — chilling footage that included him calmly walking to his final destination outside the embassy’s gates before dousing himself in a flammable liquid and lighting it, sending him up in flames.
The steely-eyed serviceman, dressed in his camouflage uniform, said in the video, “I will no longer be complicit in genocide [in Gaza].
“I am about to engage in an extreme act of protest,” he added before repeatedly screaming, “Free Palestine!’’ as fire engulfed him and he eventually collapsed. "