Boulder rally organizer says 88-year-old woman is worst injured: ‘I saw flames all over her’

By Luke Tress

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2 June 2025, 9:37 pm

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Luke Tress is The Times of Israel's New York correspondent.

A bomb disposal robot sits on Pearl Street at the site of an attack on demonstrators calling for the release of Israeli hostages held in Gaza, in Boulder, Colorado, on June 1, 2025. (Eli Imadali / AFP)

An organizer of the Run for Their Lives hostage advocacy group that was attacked yesterday in Boulder, Colorado, says the most severely injured participant is an 88-year-old woman who was critically injured in the attack.

The group was holding a weekly walk in Boulder when the attack happened, says Omer Shachar, an Israeli who co-leads the hostages group in Boulder and Denver.

“We were doing our usual walk, very peaceful, quiet walk, just with flags and the posters of the hostages,” Shachar tells The Times of Israel.

As the group approached Boulder’s courthouse, “This guy threw Molotov cocktails at us and many of us got injured, got burns.”

The 88-year-old woman and her husband were the worst injured and were airlifted to a hospital for treatment. The woman is the individual seen in the video from the attack lying on the ground, with bystanders pouring water on her injuries, he says.

“I saw flames all over her, top to bottom,” Shachar says, adding that there were children in the crowd.

He confirms that another woman, who is a Holocaust survivor, was wounded. He declines to share the victims’ names due to privacy concerns.

The alleged attacker, Mohamed Sabry Soliman, also used a “makeshift flamethrower” in the attack that was made from a “backpack weed sprayer” loaded with gasoline, according to the FBI.

Shachar says Soliman attempted to use the device against the protesters, but the sprayer caught fire itself, so Soliman removed it and his shirt, Shachar says.

Shachar, who is from central Israel and has been in Colorado for four and a half years, says he is arranging security for upcoming events, such as the Boulder Jewish Festival scheduled for this weekend and future hostage events. He vows to keep marching for the hostages.

“I will keep walking until the last hostage comes back,” he says.

“People here are so committed to the cause,” he says. “It doesn’t matter if it’s snow, if it’s rain, if it’s hot. It’s so important to them.”