They were marching for Israeli hostages. Then an antisemitic firebombing started

It started as a typical Sunday for Ed Victor. Every Sunday since September, he had stood in silent solidarity with members of the Jewish community in front of the Boulder County Historic Court House. The group had gathered to take part in “Run for Their Lives” — a global event organized by members of the Jewish community to bring attention to the 58 hostages still in Gaza. Even when there had been hecklers, Victor and other members would focus on setting up their demonstration — signs reading “Let them go now,” and posters bearing the faces of 58 hostages still being held in Gaza. Victor was talking to someone, looking west toward the mountains, he said, when he first felt the heat. “Huge amount of flame,” Victor said. Then, he saw someone on fire. The quiet, peaceful march in Boulder, Colorado, quickly devolved into chaos after a man used a flamethrower and Molotov cocktails to set people at the plaza on fire in an antisemitic attack. Smoke rose as demonstrators and onlookers rushed to find anything that could hold water to pour onto the more than a half dozen people set ablaze. Clothing singed off bodies. Screams from burn victims and sirens from ambulances, police cars and firetrucks pierced the air. Victor used flags and banners meant to bring awareness to the hostages to smother flames that had consumed another marcher. At least 12 people were injured in the attack, District Attorney Michael Dougherty said Monday. Two are still hospitalized, officials said. “I never ever, ever would’ve thought that this would’ve happen. I really can’t and I’m so shocked that it did,” Victor said. Jewish leaders had been warning of the historic rise in antisemitic violence and threats since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas. Nearly two years later, US-led attempts to broker a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas remain unsuccessful, fighting in Gaza continues and antisemitic threats in the US have boiled over into violence. Sunday’s antisemitic attack took place just weeks after two Israeli Embassy staff members in Washington DC were killed by a pro-Palestinian attacker and an arsonist targeted Josh Shapiro’s home during Passover because of the Pennsylvania governor’s views on the war in the Gaza, heightening fear in the Jewish community. The FBI is investigating Sunday’s firebombing as “an act of terrorism.” ‘You’re a killer’ The “Run for Their Lives” event had been meeting regularly since mid-October 2023. The suspect, later identified as Mohamed Sabry Soliman, had been planning the attack for nearly as long, he told federal authorities. He targeted the group after researching them online, but waited nearly a year to attack them — until his daughter graduated high school, according to an affidavit filed Sunday. Soliman, who was born in Egypt but lived in Kuwait for 17 years, arrived in the United States in August 2022 as a non-immigrant visitor, according to multiple law enforcement officials. Soliman was seeking revenge after he determined the group didn’t care about Palestinian hostages, per the affidavit. He told authorities he “wanted to kill all Zionist people.” Witnesses said the suspect showed up to the plaza looking like a gardener, officials said. He wore a utility vest over his shirt, and carried a garden sprayer. Investigators believe he stopped at nearby gas stations to fill up bottles and the sprayer before the attack, arriving in the area around 1 p.m. He threw two Molotov cocktails, and the district attorney said police later found 16 more in the area. Brian Horwitz was at a nearby cafe having brunch with family when the attack began. The 37-year-old heard the screams and ran toward the suspect. “‘F*** you Zionists. You’re killing my people so I kill you,’” Horwitz said he heard the man say. The attacker then singled out people in the plaza saying “’you’re a killer, you’re a killer,’” Horwitz said. Horwitz said the man then locked eyes with him. “That’s when he looked at me and said you’re a killer,” Horwitz recalled. He ran to an elderly victim who had burns on her feet and hands. The woman told him to worry about her friend instead, he said. Her friend had severe burns to her calf, the skin barely visible. “She was cool, calm and collected - almost as if she had been there before,” Horwitz said. Three minutes after he called emergency services, police arrived and took the suspect into custody, Horwitz said. He noted the wait felt like an eternity. “It was easily the most horrific thing I’ve ever seen in my life,” Horwitz said. “There’s someone who is outraged enough to go and attack these elderly people who are doing absolutely nothing to provoke it other than walk in silence and meet in a courtyard peacefully. It’s unbelievable.” Soliman “stated he would do it (conduct an attack) again,” according to the affidavit. He later told investigators he had planned on dying in the attack, according to a warrant for his arrest. This happened to ‘the whole community’ Many of the injured were older adults. None of them have died, Boulder police said. Two were burned so badly, they had to be airlifted to nearby hospitals. In one video, a severely injured woman is seen lying on the ground as bystanders pour water on her. “There were people on the ground and a bunch of others running over with buckets and bottles and whatever they could carry water in” the owner of Heady Bauer, a local clothing store, told CNN. “Everyone was dumping water on the burned people, especially one woman on the ground who was totally torched from her hair to her legs.” Aaron Brooks said he saw “smoke coming from a human being.” There was also singed grass and black marks around the site of the attack, he said. Horwitz said he saw pants completely burned and singed off, and “it looked like their skin had just melted off their bodies.” Among those injured are a mother and daughter, said Elyana Funk, executive director of the University of Boulder Hillel. The mother “is a Holocaust survivor in her 80’s, who’s been through certainly enough trauma.” Funk said she talked to some of the victims, who range in age from 52 to 88, including one woman who is “healing from horrible burns.” The woman, Funk said, “really felt like this happened not just to her, but to the whole community.” Soliman has been arrested and charged with a federal hate crime, and is facing a slew of state charges, including 16 counts of attempted first-degree murder. The weekly vigil in Boulder is now on hold, but Funk said the community will still find ways to come together. Victor says he’ll be back next week again, just like he’s been for nearly a year. “This would not stop me,” he said. “We’ll see what other people decide they want to do, but I will be here.”