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.
In Jericho, Bushnell’s extreme act is seen as the most powerful expression of grassroots solidarity. Amani Rayan, a Jericho city council member who grew up in Gaza and moved to the occupied West Bank to study aged 19, said: “He [Bushnell] sacrificed the most precious thing, whatever your beliefs. This man gave all his privileges for the children of Gaza.”
Critics in the US have cautioned that Bushnell’s self-immolation should be treated as the desperate decision of a person living with mental illness, rather than commemorated as a political protest.
Rayan rejects that argument. “He was a soldier who with his last breath, despite the pain, shouted ‘free Palestine’. This means he was clear to the depths of his being about why he was doing it.”
Much of Rayan’s family is still trapped in Gaza; her uncle was killed in an airstrike on 26 November 2023 with 25 other people and in February her sister nearly died giving birth in a hospital under Israeli attack.
Rayan compared the American to the Tunisian fruit seller Mohamed Bouazizi, who was a year older than Bushnell when he took his life in the same way in 2010. His self-immolation triggered revolutions across the Middle East and many in the US, including the then president, Barack Obama, who paid tribute to him.
“[Bushnell] wanted to light a strong spark, to reignite our cause,” Rayan said.
At the time of his death, Bushnell had been thought to be making plans to transition back into civilian life in May. But he had also considered leaving the air force early to “take a stand” against what he saw as state-sponsored violence, especially US support for Israel in Gaza.
Jericho named the street just a fortnight after Bushnell’s death. “We made a quick decision so we would be first,” Sidr said. They also named a square for South Africa after its government took Israel to the international court of justice, accusing it of genocide.
“These names will focus attention of both the locals and visitors,” Sidr said, adding that they were following a precedent set after the death of the activist Rachel Corrie. A street in Ramallah was named for the American after she was crushed to death by a bulldozer in 2003 while trying to prevent the Israeli army destroying homes in Gaza.
Jericho is a historic city often seen as the gate to Palestine. The then Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) leader, Yasser Arafat, appeared on the town hall balcony when he returned from decades of exile after the Oslo accords.
One of the oldest continuously inhabited cites on Earth, the Tell es-Sultan archaeological site was listed last year as a Unesco world heritage site. It includes the remains of 29 layered cities, including a stone tower dating back 10,000 years.
Aaron Bushnell Street is in the south of the city in a popular area of villas and parks, where people go for horse-riding and go-carting. It branches off from Mahmoud Darwish Street, named after the unofficial national poet of Palestine.
Rayan said: “Here Aaron Bushnell and Mahmoud Darwish meet. Both are powerful names in the Palestinian story.” Like many in Jericho she hopes Bushnell’s family will visit. “We want to thank them for raising him and giving him that moral attitude.”
In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, you can call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 988, chat on 988lifeline.org, or text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis counsellor. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org
