Another American who set himself on fire to protest Gaza genocide identified online
Boston, Massachusetts - A man who set himself on fire for Gaza near the Israeli consulate in Boston on September 11 has been identified online as Matt Nelson.
"My name is Matt Nelson, and I'm about to engage in an extreme act of protest," he said in a video posted on YouTube on Wednesday. "We are all culpable in the ongoing genocide in Gaza."
"We are slaves to capitalism and the military industrial complex. Most of us are too apathetic to care," Nelson says in the clip. "The protest I'm about to engage in is a call to our government to stop supplying Israel with the money and weapons it uses to imprison and murder innocent Palestinians, to pressure Israel to end the genocide in Gaza, and to support the ICC indictment of Benjamin Netanyahu and other members of the Israeli government."
"A democracy is supposed to serve the will of the people, not the interests of the wealthy. Take the power back. Free Palestine."
The man, presumed to be Nelson, was transferred to a hospital with serious burns, but his current condition is not yet known. Police have not confirmed his identity.
His was the third known act of self-immolation since Israel's US-backed, all-out siege of Gaza began last October. In December, an unnamed woman with a Palestinian flag set herself on fire outside the Israeli consulate in Atlanta. She was followed in February by 25-year-old US Air Force member Aaron Bushnell, who has been hailed as a hero, outside the Israeli embassy in Washington DC.
Israel has killed at least 41,118 people in Gaza in the last 11 months, according to the territory's health ministry, although the true number is assumed to be far higher. The trapped and besieged population faces overwhelming threats of displacement, disease, and starvation as Israel continues its relentless bombardment and blockade.
Meanwhile, the US government continues to supply Israel with deadly weapons and military equipment despite mounting calls for an arms embargo.
Cover photo: Screenshot/YouTube/@Matt-ll5iu