A man set himself on fire on Sunday afternoon outside the Israeli Embassy in Washington, according to the Metropolitan Police Department in Washington.
Officers with the U.S. Secret Service extinguished the fire outside the embassy, in northwestern Washington, around 1 p.m., said Vito Maggiolo, a spokesman with the city’s fire department. The man was taken to a nearby hospital with life-threatening injuries and remains in critical condition.
The police also investigated a suspicious vehicle nearby for explosives, but Sean Hickman, a police spokesman, said the scene had been cleared by 4 p.m. Officers with the Secret Service and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives had worked with Washington’s explosive ordnance disposal unit to investigate the incident.
No embassy staff members were injured, and all were accounted for, according to Tal Naim, a spokeswoman for the Israeli Embassy in Washington.
The embassy has been the site of sustained protests against the war in Gaza as the civilian death toll in the devastated enclave continues to climb, with more than 29,000 dead, according the local health ministry officials.
In December, a protester self-immolated in front of the Israeli consulate in Atlanta in what police said was “likely an extreme act of political protest.”