Above photo: Aaron Bushnell. Bushnell, an active-duty member of the U.S. Air Force, shouted “free Palestine” before setting himself on fire outside the Israeli embassy in Washington, D.C. LinkedIn/Twitter.
The hacker group is inspired by the 25-year-old US Air Force serviceman who self-immolated in a radical act of protest of Israel’s war on Gaza.
A hacker group dedicated to the memory of Aaron Bushnell, who burned himself to death in February in protest of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, has hacked into printers worldwide, causing them to print flyers promoting Bushnell’s message.
The hacker group, Bushnell’s Men, posted a message on its Telegram page on 14 March stating, “Due to the press boycott of the genocide in Gaza by countries profiting from the war, ‘The Bushnell’s Men’ as a hacker group is committed to exposing the reality via printing this paper through over 30,000 printers across the world.”
The message stated further, “We ask all truth-seekers to join the #Bushnellmen campaign in this regard. Our ultimate goal is to convey Aaron’s message to stop the genocide. Aaron put an end to his life on behalf of the other American soldiers who are forced to kill the innocent people in Gaza. Aaron didn’t die in vain. He has already inspired so many to stand up for truth and justice.”
On 25 February, Aaron Bushnell, a 25-year-old US Air Force serviceman, died after setting himself on fire outside the front gate of the Israeli embassy in Washington, DC. While live streaming on Twitch, Bushnell filmed himself walking to the embassy, saying that he was protesting against “what people have been experiencing in Palestine at the hands of their colonizers” and declared that he “will no longer be complicit in genocide.”
He then doused himself with a flammable liquid and set himself on fire. Footage of Bushnell’s radical act of protest against the US military’s provision of weapons to Israel amid its genocide in Gaza went viral and was met with an outpouring of solidarity from both Palestinians and people around the world.
On March 17, the Bushnell’s Men group posted images of documents showing the successful hack, including on printers at the Goethe University in Frankfurt, Germany.
The following day, the group posted photos of flyers printed with Bushnell’s image and statistics on the number of Palestinians killed, injured, and displaced by Israel’s bombing and ground campaign in Gaza.
On 1 May, the group posted images of flyers in Hebrew sent to printers in Israel highlighting the cost of the war to Israelis, including the number of soldiers killed in the war, the number taken captive to Gaza by Hamas, and the number of those displaced within Israel.
The group stated on Telegram, “We have sent a message to the people of Israel through all printers. And in it, we have presented statistics to the bitter reality of the war for the people of Israel. This war is only beneficial for Netanyahu’s government. And all its difficulties and problems are for the people.”
On the same day, the group posted a message stating that it had sent flyers to printers in the US and Europe, further highlighting Israeli crimes in Gaza and expressing support for students at many universities protesting the genocide under harsh oppression from police.
On 8 May, the group posted a CCTV video from an office at a university in Texas showing two female employees discovering the flyers being printed.
Following Bushnell’s death and radical protest, Hamas expressed solidarity with his family, saying, “he immortalized his name as a defender of human values and the oppression of the suffering Palestinian people because of the American administration and its unjust policies.”
The statement added that Bushnell had paid with his life to highlight the “massacres and Zionist genocide” against Palestinians.