Flamethrower attack in Colorado leaves eight injured at Israeli hostages rally

At least eight people were injured in an attack in Boulder on Sunday after an attacker used a makeshift flamethrower and launched a firebomb into a crowd demanding for the release of Israeli hostages in Gaza.

Authorities said the person suspected, revealed to a 45-year-old Mohamed Sabry Soliman, shouted “Free Palestine” before attacking the crowd in what the FBI is treating as an “act of terrorism”. The victims, between the ages of 52 and 88, were rushed to hospitals in the Denver area with injuries included everything from minor scrapes to “severe trauma.” Police said, they are under treated for burns among other injuries, police said. Soliman was detained at the scene and taken to the hospital for treatment, but authorities did not describe his injuries in depth.

The officials believe Soliman deliberately targeted the protesters, who are among the volunteer group called Run for Their Lives, which organises run and walk events to call for the swift release of the Israeli hostages who are in Gaza following their capture by militants in the course of the incursion into southern Israel that started the Israel-Hamas war in 2023. FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino said in a post on X that “This act of terror is being investigated as an act of ideologically motivated violence based on the early information, the evidence, and witness accounts. We will speak clearly on these incidents when the facts warrant it.”

One video showed him not wearing shirt and holding two clear bottles with transparent liquid in them while yelling at bystanders who had grouped in a pedestrianised zone for a peaceful protest for Israeli hostages still kept in Gaza. Again, another video shows a witness screaming, “He’s right there. He’s throwing Molotov cocktails,” as a police officer moved in on the suspect with weapons drawn.

FBI leaders in Washington said they were looking into the attack as a possible terror incident, and the Justice Department — coordinating the investigation forward into acts of violence sparked by religious, racially or ethnically charged reasons —condemned the assault as a “needless act of violence, which follows recent attacks against Jewish Americans.”

US President Donald Trump’s government has crack down on pro-Palestine protests, arresting protesters against the war and halting financial support to US universities that have permitted such rallies. The incident in Colorado comes at a time of inflamed tensions in the US over Israel’s war in the Gaza Strip, which has triggered an increase in antisemitic aggression.

A week earlier, two Israeli Embassy officials were shot to death in Washington by a man who shouted l, “I did it for Palestine” as he was escorted away by officers. Prosecutors said they were “fully united” in holding the attacker fully responsible. Boulder police said they would step up security ahead of several events celebrating the Jewish holiday of Shavuot set to occur over the next two days.

The Boulder Jewish Community Centre said in a statement, “When events like this enter our own community, we are shaken. Our hope is that we come together for one another.”

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