Published Feb. 26, 2024,
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 live-streamed 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.
Here is what we know about Bushnell.
The airman entered basic training in May 2020 and “graduated top of flight and top of class,’’ according to his LinkedIn profile, which said Monday it “has been memorialized as a tribute to Aaron Bushnell’s professional legacy.”
He ended up stationed in San Antonio, Texas — across the country from his family back home in Orleans on Cape Cod.
At the time of his death, Bushnell was working as a DevOps, or software development and operations, engineer, a tech guy who was presumably acting as a go-between for the two areas, his job profile said.
He also had cyber-security training, he said.
“Throughout my time in the military in both leadership and followership roles, as well as prior work experience in a variety of civilian roles, I have thrived in team environments and gained very good communication skills,’’ wrote Bushnell, who was promoted to his last job in March 2023.
“I have been commended by senior leaders for my ability to explain complex technical matters to them. I can bring many such soft skills to the table in any role.”
He described himself as an “aspiring software engineer’’ and said he was “currently pursuing a Bachelor’s degree in Software Engineering from Western Governor’s University,’’ although the page also said he was actually attending Southern New Hampshire University.
“We are deeply saddened by the news of Aaron’s passing and the SNHU community sends its deepest condolences to Aaron’s family and friends,” the school said in a statement to ABC on Monday.
Aaron Bushnell expected to obtain a bachelor’s degree in software engineering in May 2025, he said on LinkedIn.
The Air Force was tight-lipped Monday about Bushnell and his death, only confirming an active-duty service member died in the disturbing incident.
“It certainly is a tragic event,’’ Pentagon Press Secretary Maj. Gen. Patrick Ryder told reporters Monday, adding that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin “is following the situation.
“We certainly do extend our condolences to the airman’s family,’’ Ryder said.
Religious family with roots in quaint Cape Cod town
The Bushnells appear to be a religious family and fairly well-known in their hometown of Orleans.
Dad David, 57, supervises construction for an architecture firm — sharing links on his Facebook page to sites such as the Church of the Transfiguration and The Community of Jesus — and mom Danielle, also 57, is employed as a “purchaser and contracts administrator’’ for Paraclete Press, a publisher of Christian books and music.
Danielle’s online company bio reads, “Her other passions include teaching American history and government to homeschoolers, playing the bass clarinet, caring for her dog, Jasper, and her cat, Lilac.”
The company declined comment to The Post on Monday.
Aaron Bushnell attended local schools when younger.
Nauset Public Schools said Monday it is “heartbroken to learn of the untimely death of one of our former students, Aaron Bushnell.
“Mr. Bushnell was a student in the Nauset Public Schools between 2003-2007 and 2013-2014,” the district told WBZ-TV in a statement. “Our school community is saddened by Mr. Bushnell’s death and we offer our condolences to his family and friends.”
As a teen, Aaron Bushnell worked for two years in IT and web development for Paraclete.
He and his younger brother Sean, 22, also performed when younger in a drum ensemble called Spirit Winter Percussion.
“Spirit WP is over the top awesome!” their proud dad wrote in a 2017 Facebook post. “Words can not express how grateful Danielle and I are for this group and how much it has meant (and continues to mean) in our boys’ lives.’’
Anarchist leanings
Aaron liked two Ohio-based anarchist groups — Burning River Anarchist Collective and Mutual Aid Street Solidarity — on his Facebook page.
He also gave the thumb’s up to an account belonging to the Kent State University chapter of the radical pro-Hamas group Students for Justice in Palestine.
In late December, Burning River touted two books for readers, including one titled, “Nourishing Resistance,’’ on its Facebook page.
On Oct. 17, 10 days after the Palestinian terror group Hamas launched its massacre in Israel, sparking the Gaza war, the anarchist group also linked to an interview by the Black Rose Anarchist Federation titled, “Voices from the Front Line Against the Occupation: Interview with Palestinian Anarchists.’’
It interviewed Fauda, “a small group centered in the West Bank that identifies itself as a Palestinian anarchist organization, to get their perspective on the current struggle.
“We hope that this interview will be a step in creating more connections between revolutionaries in the US and the militant youth in Palestine, and more knowledge and understanding of each other,’’ Black Rose said.
The Fauda member interviewed said during the conversation, “I want to tell all our brothers around the world, not just in the United States, to never trust what the global media empire tells you.
“I want you to know something else, which is that the Palestinian Authority and President Mahmoud Abbas do not represent us, the Palestinian people, at all. We reject authority and we reject Abbas and all his ministers.”
Burning River declined comment to The Post on Monday, saying in an e-mail that “none of us knew’’ Aaron Bushnell.
The airman’s final hours
Two hours before he burned himself alive around 1 p.m. Sunday, Aaron Bushnell posted a now-eerie final message on Facebook.
“Many of us like to ask ourselves, ‘What would I do if I was alive during slavery? Or the Jim Crow South? Or apartheid? What would I do if my country was committing genocide?’ The answer is, you’re doing it. Right now,” he wrote.
The message included a link to a Twitch livestream, which he would soon use to broadcast to the world his opposition to the war in Gaza — and his horrific end.
“Hi, my name is Aaron Bushnell, I am an active duty member of the United States Air Force, and I will no longer be complicit in genocide,’’ the young man then says matter-of-factly in the footage as he walks toward his final destination outside the embassy Sunday afternoon.
“I am about to engage in an extreme act of protest, but compared to what people have been experiencing in Palestine at the hands of their colonizers it’s not extreme at all.
“This is what our ruling class has decided, will be normal.’’
Once in front of the embassy gates, he uses a thermos to douse himself with the flammable liquid, then tries to light his uniform but apparently fails so instead torches the liquid pooling around his feet and goes up in flames.
“Free Palestine!’’ the airman repeatedly screams as he waves his arms and amazingly stays standing for about 45 seconds before crumpling to the ground, his clothes burned and his body charred.
He was rushed to the hospital in critical condition and died Sunday night, authorities and Air Force officials said.
Two people who were claimed to be friends of Bushnell spoke to independent journalist Talia Jane, who posted their words to X on Monday.
“He is one of the most principled comrades I’ve ever known,” said a person called Xylem, who apparently had worked with Bushnell to support San Antonio’s unhoused residents.
Another friend called Errico, who said they had met Bushnell in 2022, added, “Aaron is the kindest, gentlest, silliest little kid in the Air Force.
“He’s always trying to think about how we can actually achieve liberation for all with a smile on his face.’’
What’s next
The Air Force told The Post on Monday it would be releasing more information on the service member by Tuesday, after a 24-hour period involving family notification.
Pentagon spokesman Ryder on Monday declined to comment on any possible ties between Aaron Bushnell and extremist groups.
He cried out for a free Palestine, and yet the US media set out to suppress the meaning and purpose of his sacrifice.
Aaron Bushnell died for Palestine. Bushnell, a 25-year-old active-duty member of the U.S. Air Force, set himself on fire in front of the Israeli Embassy in Washington D.C. Sunday afternoon after declaring that he would “no longer be complicit in genocide.” As the flames consumed him, a police officer pointed a gun at Bushnell, who yelled out the words “Free Palestine” in pained screams until his voice fell silent.
Despite the fact that Bushnell died while engaging in what he called “an extreme act of protest,” multiple major news outlets ran headlines that depoliticized his tragic death. A New York Times headline read, “Man Dies After Setting Himself on Fire Outside Israeli Embassy in Washington, Air Force Says.” CNN and Reuters both ran the headline, “US airman sets himself on fire outside Israeli Embassy in Washington.” The Washington Post took a similar approach, opting for the language, “Active-duty airman sets himself on fire outside Israeli Embassy in Washington.” An article about Bushnell published by NPR stated, “As of Monday morning, NPR was not able to independently verify the man’s motives.”
Aaron Bushnell, however, had already verified his motives. Bushnell streamed his self-immolation on the platform Twitch using an account that was apparently created in order to broadcast his death. The original video was swiftly removed from the streaming platform. I watched a censored version, which was posted by journalist Talia Jane. Jane said they had received permission from Bushnell’s loved ones to post a version of the video that was edited to obscure the sight of Bushnell’s burning body. At the beginning of the video, Bushnell introduced himself, saying, “My name is Aaron Bushnell. I am an active-duty member of the United States Air Force, and I will no longer be complicit in genocide.” As he approached the Israeli Embassy, Bushnell stated, “I’m about to engage in an extreme act of protest. But compared to what people have been experiencing in Palestine at the hands of their colonizers, it’s not extreme at all. This is what our ruling class has decided will be normal.”
Upon reaching the embassy, Bushnell backed away from the camera. In his hand, he held a thermos that was adorned with stickers. He opened the thermos and poured a flammable substance over his head and body before lighting himself on fire. As the flames engulfed him, he repeatedly yelled, “Free Palestine!”
With his dying breaths, Aaron Bushnell cried out for a free Palestine, and yet the U.S. media has set out to suppress the meaning and purpose of his sacrifice. This erasure is not shocking in light of the anti-Palestinian bias that publications like The New York Times have previously demonstrated.
“This is what our ruling class has decided will be normal,” said Aaron Bushnell, who was 25. By Sharon Zhang , TRUTHOUT February 26, 2024
Over the weekend, the Times reportedly “cut ties” with freelancer Anat Schwartz, who co-authored an influential and inflammatory piece for the publication, which claimed that Hamas systematically used sexual violence as a weapon of war on October 7. Schwartz faced fierce criticism on social media after another Twitter user discovered that Schwartz clicked “like” on a post that called for Gaza to be turned into a “slaughterhouse.” The piece Schwartz co-authored has been widely criticized for its alleged inconsistencies, misrepresentations, and inadequate fact-checking. Critics of the piece include an Israeli family whose story was central to the article and staff members of the Times.
I will not rehash the allegations of that infamous piece or outline the many concerns that have been raised about it. The pro-Israel bias of the piece is not abnormal for the Times or for the U.S. media in general, and this certainly isn’t the first crisis of legitimacy the Times has faced for biased reporting. Anyone who remembers the run-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq knows the Times has a rich history of publishing lies that facilitate mass violence – and that they have not been alone in that work. The vague headlines and feigned uncertainty found in coverage of Bushnell’s death are also familiar. Israel’s atrocities, much like police violence in the United States, are usually framed as unsubstantiated allegations by major publications. If the truth incriminates the U.S. or Israel, it is rarely expressed with clarity.
Bushnell’s suicide is the story of a member of the U.S. armed forces who chose death over an affiliation with genocide. That is a narrative that a lot of people would like to bury. By livestreaming his death, Bushnell dared us to witness the kind of horror that the U.S. has facilitated in Gaza, where more than 29,000 Palestinians have been slaughtered by the Israeli military. Bushnell died to divorce himself from that violence and to force us to reckon with it. “This is what our ruling class has decided will be normal,” he said.
The efforts we have seen to erase Bushnell’s motives are unconscionable, which is why I began this piece by stating a truth so undeniable, so heartbreaking, and so unpredictable in its impact that the stenographers of genocidaires and their apologists felt compelled to suppress it: Aaron Bushnell died for Palestine.
Following his death, the mutual aid organization Serve The People Akron released a statement on social media that praised Bushnell’s work supporting unhoused community members, calling him a “valued member of our organization.” Serve The People wrote that Bushnell was dependable and persistent “with the mutual aid work he did in a city that was still new to him.” The group expressed gratitude for Bushnell’s organizing work, stating, “We will be forever grateful for the effort he put in to make Akron a better place.” Serve The People also urged the public to honor Bushnell’s sacrifice. “We are all still devastated to learn of his passing but we do not want his actions to go in vain. Please continue your education, advocacy, and support for the Palestinian people,” they wrote.
Talia Jane posted comments from some of Bushnell’s friends and co-strugglers, including Xylem, who worked with Bushnell to support San Antonio’s unhoused residents. Xylem told Jane, “He is one of the most principled comrades I’ve ever known.”
Another friend of Bushnell’s, whom Jane identified as Errico, said of Bushnell, “He’s always trying to think about how we can actually achieve liberation for all with a smile on his face.”
More than 100 people gathered outside the Israeli Embassy in Washington D.C. Monday night to pay tribute to Bushnell. Mourners also gathered in Los Angeles and Long Beach, California. Vigils will be held in Chicago, Portland, and New York City on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Some people have raised concerns that honoring Bushnell amounts to a glorification of suicide. I do not believe Bushnell was seeking glory any more than I believe that the compassion, grief, and empathy that many people have expressed amount to glorification. However, there is no way to neatly reconcile the horrors of this genocidal moment with our fears or feelings about suicide or death. As I recently told a dear friend, “We weren’t meant to live this way, and they weren’t meant to die this way.” More than 12,300 Palestinian children should not be dead. 7,000 people should not be buried under the rubble. 1.9 million Palestinians should not be displaced. Israeli civilians should not be organizing celebratory blockades to prevent humanitarian aid from reaching Gaza. Images of murdered and dismembered children should not fill our social media feeds. More than 29,000 murdered Palestinians should still be alive, and Aaron Bushnell should be working on mutual aid projects with his friends. There is no “right way” to process the unthinkable; we can only hold people in their humanity, honor the dead, and defend the living.
Self-immolation is a tragedy that, in many cases, signals a collective failure so egregious that everything, including our well-reasoned sensibilities, should be upended by it. To withhold our compassion, our understanding, our solidarity, or any other human response to such sacrifices does nothing to sanctify or protect life. We should be consumed by the horror of such acts, just as Bushnell was consumed by the flames he ignited. We should be jarred into action and determined to build a front so powerful that no person of conscience feels desperate enough to view a fiery death as their only recourse.
Bushnell was not the first person in the U.S. to self-immolate in order to protest the genocide Israel is waging in Gaza. In December, an unidentified person set themselves on fire near the Israeli consulate in Atlanta in what police characterized as “likely an extreme act of protest.” The fate of the individual in that case is not publicly known.
Bushnell’s final act of protest was part of a tragic lineage that has unfolded across the course of human history. People have set themselves ablaze to protest religious persecution, warfare, structural oppression, the destruction of the natural world, and many other injustices. A refusal to acknowledge and understand such desperate deaths devalues the humanity of those we have lost and denies their dying plea: that we see, that we feel, that we understand and that we act accordingly. We must hold the truth of Bushnell’s final act in our hearts, and we must resist any erasure of why his young life came to an end. We must remember, and we must tell the truth that enablers of genocide would erase: Aaron Bushnell died for Palestine.
Author’s Note: If you are struggling with depression or despair, please take care of yourself. You are loved and needed. If you need support, these resources from Dandelion Hill might be helpful:
Aaron Bushnell’s Self-Immolation Indicates ‘Profound Change in Consciousness in US’
On Sunday, February 25, Aaron Bushnell became the first active duty US soldier to use self-immolation to protest the actions of the military he was a part of. “I’m about to engage in an extreme act of protest,” he said in a self-recorded livestream outside of the Israeli embassy in Washington, DC. “But, compared to what people have been experiencing in Palestine at the hands of their colonizers, it’s not extreme at all. This is what our ruling class has decided will be normal.” He then lit himself on fire. He later succumbed to his injuries in a hospital.
Before his final act of protest, Bushnell, who worked in the IT department in the US Air Force, made a post on Facebook, which read, “Many of us like to ask ourselves, ‘What would I do if I was alive during slavery? Or the Jim Crow South? Or apartheid? What would I do if my country was committing genocide?’ The answer is, you’re doing it. Right now.”
Anti-imperialist and Palestine solidarity organizations within the United States have released several statements in honor of Bushnell.
Brian Becker, the Executive Director of the ANSWER Coalition, wrote in a statement released on the morning of February 26, “This was an act of martyrdom by a US service member who was outraged by the actions of a government that speaks in his name.”
Becker continues, “Aaron Bushnell’s action is a reflection, an indicator, a marker, of the profound change in consciousness in the United States. The previously dominant narrative that backed the Israeli apartheid government is dramatically giving way to a narrative based on the truth: that the Palestinian people have been the victims of dispossession, ethnic cleansing, violence of all types and now a genocidal killing spree in Gaza. And people in the United States and around the world are horrified and are mobilizing on multiple fronts in support of Palestine.”
The Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM) also released a statement highlighting the message sent by Bushnell’s protest. “In making the most extreme sacrifice a human being can in support of a moral cause — his own life — Aaron sent a message on behalf of the masses of the US and of the world, that people of conscience everywhere will refuse complicity in the unfolding genocide against the Palestinian people until our last breath,” the statement read.
It concludes by saying, “Let Aaron’s words and last act burn brightly in our conscience, let it propel us, let it move us to continue struggling for a Free Palestine, now and until the hour of liberation.”
Iraq war veteran Mike Prysner wrote a tribute to Bushnell, commenting on the crisis of conscience that many US service members face for being part of “an institution of killing”. Prysner writes, “The torment of Israel’s barbarism has been a trying time for all people with a conscience. We have all reeled for months through rage and hopelessness…For Bushnell, that meant also having to put on the uniform of the institution loading the weapons…providing tactical and strategic assistance to the genocide. Not only that, but one also doing the killing: conducting the air strikes on Yemen, Iraq and Syria against people we have no reason or right to kill.”
Prysner emphasized: “Bushnell saw the plain truth: that he was an accomplice to all that. The truth killed him. The Pentagon brass killed him. Joe Biden and Congress killed him.”
However, Prysner also pointed out the crucial role that soldiers and veterans have played historically in organizing against war and called on service members and veterans to take steps to protest US complicity in Israel’s genocide and object to participating.
No Tech for Apartheid, a campaign organized by Google and Amazon workers against the companies’ contract with the Israeli government and military, released a statement highlighting the role of tech workers, like Bushnell, in opposing the genocide. “Armed forces from the US to Israel employ thousands of tech workers as military operations become more and more AI-driven. These operations are also powered by tech companies like Amazon and Google, which are enabling the world’s first AI-powered genocide committed by the Israeli military.” The campaign called on tech workers of conscience to join the movement and refuse to be complicit in genocide.
Pro-Palestine and anti-war groups have organized vigils to honor Bushnell in several cities in the US. In Washington DC, a vigil was held in front of the Israeli embassy where Bushnell carried out his action.
NOW: Palestine solidarity activists hold a vigil outside the Israeli embassy in Washington DC where 25 year-old U.S. airman Aaron Bushnell took his own life by self-immolation to call for an end to Israel’s genocide in Gaza pic.twitter.com/MhwDD7lUXe
— BreakThrough News (@BTnewsroom) February 26, 2024
International response
The weight of Bushnell’s protest, the fact that an active member of the US military carried out such an extreme protest against US support of Israel’s genocide, sent shockwaves around the world with “Washington” “Aaron Bushnell” and his last words, “Free Palestine”, appearing as trending topics on X in countries across the world.
Bushnell’s protest was widely shared throughout Yemen, where the people have been constantly mobilizing and engaging in direct acts of solidarity with Gaza, such as the Ansar Allah movement’s blockade of the Red Sea to ships linked to Israel. One X post from Yemeni doctor Ahmed Ali Alhareb reads, “He refused to be annihilated and did not stand by. Rather, he took a practical stance, ignited himself, and gave his soul to deliver the message of rejection to all corners of the globe. From his position in the American Army, he sent his message to the silent Arab and Islamic armies that the fire of this world is easier for you than the fire of the afterlife, and there is no excuse for everyone before God.”
Leftist Palestinian resistance group, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, released a statement following Bushnell’s protest highlighting that it “confirms the state of anger among the American people due to the official American involvement in the zionist genocide war being waged on the Gaza Strip. It also indicates that the status of the Palestinian cause, especially in American circles, is becoming more deeply entrenched in the global conscience, and reveals the truth of the zionist entity as a cheap colonial tool in the hands of savage imperialism.”
Many have also drawn the connection with the Israeli killing of US citizen Rachel Corrie in 2003 in Rafah when she tried to stop a bulldozer from demolishing a Palestinian home.
At the start of Bushnell’s livestream, his first words after introducing himself as an active-duty soldier are “I will no longer be complicit in genocide.” Many in the United States, including those who have been taking to the streets for Palestine since October 7, have come to the same conclusion.
