Matt Nelson set himself on fire outside the Four Seasons hotel in downtown Boston on last Wednesday night in protest against US military support of Israeli genocide in Gaza.
Surveillance footage obtained by NBC10 Boston captured the harrowing moment around 8:15 p.m., as Nelson engaged in what he described as an extreme act of protest against the ongoing genocide in Gaza.
His protest was shared with a message included in a video on YouTube.
“My name is Matt Nelson and I’m about to engage in an extreme act of protest. We are all culpable in the ongoing genocide in Gaza. We are slaves to capitalism and the military-industrial complex,” he said.
“Most of us are too apathetic to care. 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,” he continued.
“A democracy is supposed to serve the will of the people, not the interests of the wealthy. Take the power back. Free Palestine,” he concluded.
The incident elicited a substantial police response, with officers securing the vicinity and conducting thorough searches of surrounding vehicles.
Boston EMS has confirmed that Nelson sustained severe burn injuries. The Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office is leading the investigation, though further details have not been released.
Nelson’s act underscores growing dissent and criticism of US’s unlimited support for Israel, reflecting a broader call for reassessment of international support and intervention in the Gaza genocide.
Nelson is the third person to self-immolate outside an Israeli consulate since Israel began its genocide in Gaza.
Last February, Aaron Bushnell, an active-duty member of the US Air Force, set himself on fire outside the Israeli Embassy in Washington, DC.
In December, a woman lit herself on fire in front of the Israeli Consulate in Atlanta in what police described as an act of “extreme political protest” over the genocide.
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