#firebomb

Movie night, pyro becomes a footrest and a pillow

doing each other's makeup :]

by Ed Victor

On Sunday, Mohamed Sabry Soliman allegedly hurled two lit Molotov cocktails at a group of peaceful protesters in Boulder, Colorado, who gather each Sunday to demand the release of the 58 hostages still held by Hamas in Gaza. As Soliman, a 45-year-old Egyptian national, threw his homemade bombs at the group, consisting of families and the elderly, he shouted “Free Palestine,” “End Zionists,” and “How many children have you killed?”

Fifteen people were injured in what authorities quickly called a “terror attack.” One of the victims was an 88-year-old Holocaust survivor.

Soliman later said that he had “no regrets” over the attack and that he “wanted them all to die.” He had allegedly been planning the attack for over a year. He tried to purchase a gun but was denied because of his status as an illegal migrant, according to authorities.

Ed Victor, 57, who recently retired from a tech career, was there that day—like every Sunday—and he was extremely lucky to have walked away without any injuries. As you’ll read below, though, witnessing the terror attack up close was an experience that “unquestionably changed” him forever.

I heard a glass break. Then the first thing I felt was the heat. It came out of nowhere. Then I looked to my left, and the older woman near me was on fire.

She crumpled to the ground, the flames following her. This all happened in no more than two to three seconds.

The next few minutes—it couldn’t have been more than one or two—felt like an eternity. My world completely narrowed, rendering me oblivious to my surroundings, to the shirtless man not more than 15 feet away who was yelling “Free Palestine” at us and who had another firebomb in his hand. It never dawned on me that I might be in danger, too, until later that day when I watched a video of the scene that showed me with my back turned to the man, completely unaware of his presence. “Run away!” I told myself through the screen, watching the video. But in the moment, I didn’t. I couldn’t.

My Boy Scouts training from nearly four decades ago kicked in. I saw a fire, and I knew the only way to get out of it was to smother it. There was no water around, from what I could see, but I could also smell the subtle hint of gasoline. Water would never work to put this kind of fire out, I knew. I looked for something, anything I could find. A few Israeli or American flags strewn on the ground—no, they were too thin. So I grabbed the banner, the one we marched behind every Sunday, which read “LET THEM GO NOW.” I was concerned that it could be made of a synthetic material—“What if it lights on fire? We could create a fireball,” I feared. But there was no time, and nothing else in sight I could possibly use, so two others and I laid the banner on top of the agonized woman, trying to put out the flames all over her body.

Once the flames went out, one of my friends who had medical training began tending to the older woman and her wounds. By this point her clothes were tattered, and I noticed burns across her body.

My attention then turned to her husband, an older man standing beside her when the fire erupted. His leg was badly burned, and he watched as his wife lay on the ground in utter pain. He screamed. I can’t remember what he said, but he was distraught beyond distraught.

When the first responders finally arrived, I watched him get loaded into an ambulance. Eventually, I learned he was taken by helicopter to a local hospital.

Last Sunday had begun like any other. It was an overcast spring day. I woke up, put on a shirt, shorts, and a pair of Tevas, and drove from my home in a nearby suburb to Boulder’s Pearl Street Mall to join in the Run for Their Lives walk. I had been to the gathering every Sunday since September 2024, since a visit I took to Israel made me realize how important it was to keep the hostages’ names alive, to show that there were people fighting for them. To me, this rally never had anything to do with Israel. It was always about the hostages still in Gaza.

What bystanders normally notice about our walk is that we are completely quiet. People often hold pictures of hostages, some who have died, and some who are still being held by Hamas in Gaza—now for over 600 days. It wasn’t uncommon for a few bystanders to offer up nods of support or for others to shout “Free Palestine” at us as we walked. We were always instructed not to respond or react to it, so I learned to ignore these things. I never felt unsafe. I never imagined I would feel unsafe walking in downtown Boulder.

The attack occurred just as we gathered in front of the Boulder courthouse to read out the names of the hostages, both those who have been murdered by Hamas and those still held in captivity, and just before we were to sing together the Israeli national anthem, Hatikvah, which literally translates in English to “The Hope.”

I can’t remember much from the time I felt that sensation of heat to the moment that I found myself going from ambulance to ambulance, trying to gather the names of the injured and find out which hospitals they were being taken to so that I could communicate that information to our friends and their families. By the time I finally looked up and took in my surroundings, I could see police putting up caution tape around the area where I had just been standing minutes before. Police were speaking to witnesses.

The man who allegedly threw the firebomb had already been arrested and taken away. As for me, I’ve put up my own internal caution tape. I may never feel comfortable going back to that spot again, though I plan to try and rejoin the march this coming Sunday, one week after the attack. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to go back to that exact space and feel normal. This has unquestionably changed me.

Karlach having a bucket list of things she wants to do now that she's out of Hell (Float in a river, Kill Gortash, Hug someone, Eat some pancakes, Go on a date with someone, Figure out/Remember Mums stew recipe, Eat Mums stew etc...) She has Gale write them down (Only guy who actually carries paper on them while out in the wilderness) so she can go through them during their adventure.

Gale helps her out with them and Karlach even convinces him to join her with some and to do some bucket list items of his own.