BOULDER, Colo. – A man with a makeshift flamethrower shouted “Free Palestine” and fired an incendiary device toward a gathering of people trying to call attention to Israeli hostages in Gaza, law enforcement officials said Sunday. Some of the injured suffered from burns.
The suspect, Mohamed Sabry Soliman, 45, was to be charged in connection with the attack that the F.B.I. was investigating as a terrorist incident.
Scene and Victims
The bloodshed erupted at the quaint Pearl Street pedestrian mall, a four-block area in downtown Boulder, amid a war between Israel and Hamas that is sparking global rivalries and has stoked a rise in antisemitic violence across the United States. 
It happened just more than a week after a man who also shouted “Free Palestine” was charged in the fatal shooting of two Israeli embassy workers outside a Jewish museum in Washington.
“Unfortunately, incidents like this are all too common in our country,” Mark Michalek, the special agent in charge of the F.B.I.’s Denver field office, which includes Boulder, said. “This is how the violence of perpetrators continues to haunt communities throughout the country.”
The six injured victims, who range in age from 67 to 88, suffered injuries ranging from serious to minor, officials said.
Targeted Group and Eyewitness Accounts
The assault took place as members of a volunteer group known as Run For Their Lives were finishing their weekly demonstration to raise the profile of the hostages still held in Gaza.
Video from the scene captures a witness yelling, “He’s right there. He’s throwing Molotov cocktails,” a police officer with his gun drawn charges in the direction of a bare-chested suspect who is carrying containers in both hands.
Lynn Segal, 72, was one of the approximately 20 people who attended on Sunday. They had heard their last music beside the courthouse when a “rope of fire” snapped out in front of her and then “two big flares.”
It quickly turned chaotic, she said, as people scrambled to access water to extinguish the flames and to find help.
Segal, who describes herself as Jewish on her father’s side and has advocated for Palestine for more than 40 years, was worried that she would be charged with aiding the suspect because her shirt supported Palestine.
“People were burning, I wanted to help,” she said. “But I didn’t want to be with the person who did it.”
Investigation and Charges
Officials didn’t release any information about Soliman, but stated that they are confident he acted alone and that no other suspect is being sought.
No criminal charges were announced immediately, but officials said they would seek to hold Soliman responsible. He was also wounded in the attack and was taken to a hospital for treatment, but authorities did not elaborate on the extent of his injuries.
FBI leaders quickly classified the attack as an act of terrorism, and the Justice Department condemned it as a “needless act of violence that has already stolen the lives of dozens of our countrymen in recent months.”
“We are treating this as a terrorist incident,” he said, speaking at a news conference in the early hours of Monday about what he called “an act of ideologically motivated violent extremism.”
“We will be transparent about these troubling incidents when it becomes necessary.” FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino said in a message shared on X.
Wider Context: Israel–Hamas War
Israel’s war in Gaza started after Hamas-led militants tunneled into southern Israel on Oct. 7 last year and killed some 1,200 people — most of them civilians — and abducted around 250 more.
They continue to hold 58 hostages — about a third of whom are assumed to be alive after the release of most of the rest in ceasefire deals or similar arrangements.
Israel’s offensive has killed more than 54,000 people in Hamas-ruled Gaza, mostly women and children, Gaza’s Health Ministry says, without specifying how many were civilians or combatants.
The offensive has devastated large parts of the region, left some 90% of the population displaced, and rendered the local population virtually completely dependent on international aid.
Local Impact and Security Response
The violence is the second mass killing in the past four years in the community of Boulder, about 25 miles (40 kilometers) northwest of Denver, including the 2018 shooting at a local high school that killed 17 people.
The gunman was convicted on murder charges one month after pleading not guilty because of insanity in an unsuccessful effort to avoid prison time.
Police evacuated several blocks of the pedestrian mall district. The environment near the scene of the attacks was tense in the hours that followed, with law enforcement agents searching around the streets with the aid of a police dog, warning the public to stay away from the mall.
This article has been revised to reflect the fact that 10 people, not four, were killed in the Boulder grocery store shooting.
The Associated Press’ Brittany Peterson and David Zalubowski in Boulder, Colorado, Kimberlee Kruesi in Providence, Rhode Island, Steve Karnowski in Minneapolis, Alanna Durkin Richer and Michael Biesecker in Washington, and Jim Mustian in New York contributed to this.
