Image source, Getty Images
- Author, Writing
- Author’s title, BBC News World
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Eight people, aged between 52 and 88, were injured after a man began to “set people on fire” in Pearl Street Mall, a popular outdoor space in Boulder, Colorado, according to the police.
The FBI described the attack as an “alleged act of terrorism.”
Police said that a peaceful support event was being held to Israeli hostages, kidnapped in Gaza by the Hamas organization, when the events occurred and that it is “quite safe” that it has the only suspect detained.
Mohamed Sabry Soliman, 45 years old and Egyptian origin, who shouted “Palestine Libre” was seen launching Molotov cocktails and using an improvised flamethrower against the protesters, according to the authorities in a press conference.
Soliman arrived in California in 2022 with a non -immigrant visa that expired in February 2023, according to several sources consulted by the CBS chain.
The suspect had been living in Colorado Springs.
According to the agents, there is no evidence to solve it is related to a broader group.
A video shows the chaotic moments of the attack: smoke, people running in different directions, areas of flames and people injured on the ground.
Image source, Getty Images
The police received calls around 13:26 local time (19:26 GMT) in which an armed man and people who were being burned, as noted by Boulder police chief Stephen Redfearn, at a press conference, was reported.
The agents who went to the place found several injured people, including some with burns.
One of the injured in the attack is a holocaust survivor, according to Rabbi Israel Wilhelm, director of Jabad at the University of Colorado in Boulder.
Speaking to CBS News, the partner in the United States of the BBC, Wilhelm described the 88 -year -old man as a “very affectionate person.”
What is known
The victims were transferred to hospitals with burns and other injuries, and at least one of them is seriously injured.
Run for Their Lives (runs for their lives) is the group that celebrated a march when the attack occurred.
According to its website, this group organizes marches and careers throughout the world to request the liberation of Israeli hostages retained by Hamas in Gaza.
He affirms that his acts are not protests, but “peaceful marches” and that there are currently 230 active groups worldwide, mostly in North America and Europe.
The groups gather once a week to walk one kilometer with red t -shirts. They also carry flags of citizens among the hostages still retained.
The movement was initiated by a group of Israelis in California, but local acts are “directed independently,” according to their website.
The deputy director of the FBI, Dan Bongino, affirms that what happened is being investigated as “an act of violence for ideological reasons” based on the “initial information, the tests and stories of the witnesses.”
While Danny Danon, Israel’s ambassador to the UN, reacted to social networks attack, describing him as “terrorism” and asking for “concrete actions.”
In a post in X, the ambassador affirms that “the Jewish protesters were brutally attacked.”
“Terrorism against Jews does not stop at the border of Gaza: it is already burning the streets of the United States,” he adds.
Another recent case
Image source, Israel Embassy in the United States
The incident this Sunday in Colorado is the second attack of great repercussion in less than two weeks in the United States that is suspected is related to Gaza’s War.
On May 21 a man shot at the people who had met for an event of networking In the Jewish Museum, in the center of Washington.
A young couple who worked for the Israeli embassy died from the shots of the man, who shouted “free, free” while he was arrested, police reported.
The suspect of that attack is Elías Rodríguez, 30 and resident of Chicago, who was charged with intentional homicide and other positions such as homicide of foreign officials, cause death with a firearm and shoot a firearm in a violent crime.
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