Matt Nelson, third person in US to self-immolate over Gaza, remains alive

On 11 September, a man identifying himself as Matt Nelson spoke on a video shared on social media stating his opposition to US military support for Israel in light of its ongoing, genocidal assault on Gaza, as well as his support for the International Criminal Court indictment of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

What appeared to be seconds later, he set himself ablaze.

"My name is Matt Nelson, and I'm about to engage in an extreme act of protest," he said in a calm voice.

"We are all culpable in the ongoing genocide in Gaza. We call ourselves the greatest nation in history, yet we spend more on weapons of war than we do on educating our children, helping the homeless, ensuring all Americans have equal rights and protecting the environment combined," he continued.

"We are slaves to capitalism and the military-industrial complex. 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 concluded, before setting himself on fire. 

Bystanders reportedly doused him with water in an effort to save him, though his burns were critical enough for him to be rushed to the hospital.

When contacted by The New Arab on Tuesday, the Boston Police Department said that he is still alive, though they didn't provide any further information on his condition.

This is the third known instance of self-immolation in the US in front of an Israeli diplomatic mission over Israel's daily airstrikes on Gaza following the 7 October attack led by Hamas. The first took place in Atlanta in December of last year, and the second was in February in front of the Israeli embassy in Washington, when Aaron Bushnell, who had served in the US military, set himself on fire and succumbed to his burn wounds.

Self-immolation is rare, and when it is done for a political purpose is considered an extreme act meant to garner support and publicity for the protester's cause. Among the more famous historical examples of this act was the 1963 self-immolation of a monk protesting the persecution of Buddhists by the South Vietnamese government. The act quickly became an international symbol of extreme resistance. 

In 2010, the self-immolation of Tunisian fruit vendor Mohamed Bouazizi in an act widely seen as making him a martyr of despair due to his difficult life circumstances made him a symbol of the onset of region-wide anti-government uprisings.

The three examples of self-immolation in the US over Israel's continuous bombing and siege of Gaza, which has killed more than 41,000 Palestinians, have seen relatively little news coverage by comparison. Of the three self-immolation cases in front of Israeli diplomatic missions, Bushnell's case saw the most coverage, though he was widely dismissed in the media as being mentally ill.