Aaron Bushnell, who died last month, ‘sacrificed everything’ for Palestinians, says mayor of Jericho

Aaron Bushnell, who died last month, ‘sacrificed everything’ for Palestinians, says mayor of Jericho

A few of the initial paragraphs for context follow - but the article is worth reading fully:

The Palestinian town of Jericho has named a street after Aaron Bushnell, the US air force member who set himself on fire outside the Israeli embassy in Washington to protest against the war in Gaza.

The 25-year-old, who died on 25 February, “sacrificed everything” for Palestinians, said the mayor of Jericho, Abdul Karim Sidr, as the street sign was unveiled on Sunday.

“We didn’t know him, and he didn’t know us. There were no social, economic or political ties between us. What we share is a love for freedom and a desire to stand against these attacks [on Gaza],” the mayor told a small crowd gathered on the new Aaron Bushnell Road.

Bushnell livestreamed his self-immolation on the social media platform Twitch, declaring he would “no longer be complicit in genocide” and shouting “free Palestine” as he started the fire. Law enforcement officials put out the flames, but he died in hospital several hours later.

Israel’s offensive in Gaza has killed more than 31,000 people, the majority of them women and children, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory. The war was triggered by the cross border attack on 7 October when Hamas killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapped 250 people.

Even as governments in Europe and the US have largely continued to back Israel’s campaign in Gaza as part of the country’s right to self-defence, Palestinians have taken heart from popular protests held from Michigan to Madrid.

  • Binzy_Boi@supermeter.social
    1·
    8 months ago

    I still question the intentions of the media and how a lot of outlets immediate ran to claim his actions as mental health related.

    Like sure, I can see where that’s coming from in a sense since self-immolation is inherently self-harm and you have to question a person’s mental health for doing so, but at the same time, I don’t know of anybody off-hand who says the same about the Buddhist monks who did the same in Vietnam.

    Maybe times have changed and people don’t see that action the same way as they used to back then, but if they are going to call this a result of mental health, I really hope they keep consistency with that from here on forward.