On Sunday afternoon, Mohamed Sabry Soliman, 45, attacked a demonstration of about 30 participants in support of Israeli hostages in Boulder, Colorado. Soliman carried out the attack armed with a “makeshift flamethrower and threw an incendiary device” while shouting “Free Palestine”. Two sources told CBS News that witnesses told investigators the suspect also yelled “End Zionist!” in the attack.
Twelve people, ranging in age from 52 to 88, including one Holocaust survivor, were injured, one critically.
16 unused Molotov cocktails were found at the scene. Investigators also say they found a backpack weed sprayer filled with 87 octane gasoline. In his Toyota Prius parked nearby, investigators discovered red rags, a jug of gasoline and paperwork with the words “Israel,” “Palestine,” and “USAID,” according to the charging document.
The FBI called the attack a “targeted act of violence” and is investigating it as an act of terrorism. Soliman will be charged in state court with 16 counts of attempted first-degree murder, eight of which are “with intent and deliberation,” the other eight of which are “with extreme indifference.” If convicted on all charges, he would face a maximum of 384 years in state prison. He’s also set to be charged with two counts of use of an incendiary device, which carries a maximum sentence of 48 years, and 16 counts of attempted use of an incendiary device, which carries a maximum sentence of 192 years.
US Attorney General Pam Bondi described the fire-bombing as an “antisemitic terror attack.”
Officials said that the 45-year-old attempted to purchase a gun before the fire attack, only to be denied because he is not a U.S. citizen.
Soliman reportedly told police that he had specifically targeted what he referred to as a “Zionist group” and had been planning the attack for a year. He also said he would do it again. He allegedly told investigators that he “hated this group and needed to stop them from taking over ‘our land,’ which he explained to be Palestine,” according to court documents.
Soliman was an Egyptian national who entered the US in August 2022 on a B-1/B-2 tourist visa and applied for asylum the following month. He was granted work authorization in March 2023, which allowed him to stay until March 2025. He was in the country illegally after his visa expired in March 2025.
Governor Jared Polis and Colorado Senators John Hickenlooper and Michael Bennett denounced the attack without mentioning the antisemitic basis for the violence.
The Boulder Jewish Community issued a joint statement in the wake of the attack. “We are saddened and heartbroken to learn that an incendiary device was thrown at walkers at the Run for Their Lives walk on Pearl Street as they were raising awareness for the hostages still held in Gaza. We don’t have all the details of what is unfolding, and we promise to keep our community informed,” the statement read. “Our hearts go out to those who witnessed this horrible attack, and prayers for a speedy recovery to those who were injured.”
The statement continued: “When events like this enter our own community, we are shaken. Our hope is that we come together for one another. Strength to you all.”
Jim Berk, the CEO of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a Jewish human rights organization, emphasized that the attack was part of a disturbing trend of violence targeting Jews.
“This marks the second violent assault on Jewish and pro-Israel civilians in the U.S. in less than two weeks—a chilling escalation that cannot be dismissed as coincidence. On May 21, two Israeli Embassy staffers were gunned down in cold blood in Washington, D.C., and now the extremist violence has come to Boulder, CO,” said Simon Wiesenthal Center CEO Jim Berk.
“Both attacks are the direct result of months of anti-Israel propaganda, moral equivocation, and silence in the face of raging antisemitism. The nonstop demonization of Israel and Zionism on our campuses, in our streets, and across digital platforms has created a climate where hate flourishes, and physical attacks—even murder—of Jews is inevitable.”
The Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis (CAMERA) slammed some reports of the incident.
“CNN cast doubt on whether the victims were peacefully protesting by putting the word ‘peaceful’ in quotation marks,” CAMERA wrote. “The BBC omitted the attacker’s shouted words and seemed to question whether it was even a targeted attack. CBS’s vague headline — “Attack at Boulder’s Pearl Street Mall in Colorado burns several people, police say” — gave no indication that this was a heinous antisemitic hate crime. Similarly, Reuters buried the identity of the victims and the nature of the crime under a generic headline: “Man attacks Colorado crowd with firebombs, 8 people injured.” Colorado’s NPR affiliate went further, erasing the antisemitic context entirely with the headline: “Multiple people burned in attack on Boulder’s Pearl Street Mall.”
“This was not a random outburst of violence,” said CAMERA CEO Kurt Schwartz, a former Massachusetts Undersecretary for Homeland Security and Undersecretary of Law Enforcement. “That some media outlets have downplayed or distorted the story makes the situation even more alarming.”
“When the media buries or sanitizes attacks like this, it contributes to the normalization of antisemitism,” Schwartz said. “This is a journalistic failure and, more troublingly, a moral one.”
