Two Palestinian college students who were shot in Vermont said they suspected they were the targets of a hate crime in their most extensive public remarks since the attack.
Hisham Awartani, Tahseen Ali Ahmad and Kinnan Abdalhamid were shot on 25 November while walking near the home of Awartani’s grandmother in Burlington, Vermont.
In an interview with NBC News on Wednesday, Awartani and Abdalhamid – both 20 – said they believe their shooter took aim at them for being Palestinian.
“I don’t think too much about if there’s gonna be hate crime charges,” Awartani said to NBC News about the triple shooting. “I just care that, like, justice is served. And to me, that is a part of it. But I know that it is a hate crime.”
Awartani added that he wasn’t surprised that he faced violence as a Palestinian, especially having grown up in the occupied West Bank and witnessing Palestinians regularly brutalized by the Israeli army.
“It’s odd because it happened in Burlington, Vermont. It’s not odd because it happened, full stop,” Awartani said, referring to the 25 November shooting.
“In the West Bank growing up, it’s just something that’s normal. Like, so many unarmed young men getting shot by the Israeli army, and they’re just left to bleed out.
“Therefore, when it happened to me, it was like, ‘Oh, this is where it happens. This is it.’”
The three friends had come back from a trip to a local bowling alley, a fun activity meant to celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday.
Awartani and Abdalhamid told NBC they were speaking Arabic and wearing keffiyehs – a traditional headdress that has come to symbolize solidarity with Palestine – when they said they spotted a man waiting on his porch with a loaded firearm.
Awartani and Abdalhamid told NBC that they believe the man may have seen the trio before and waited for them to return home.
The man then walked down from his porch and began shooting at them, Awartani and Abdalhamid said to NBC.
“Tahseen was screaming. He was shot first,” Abdalhamid said to NBC. “Hisham didn’t make a sound. As soon as Tahseen started screaming, I was running.”
The shooting left Awartani paralyzed from the chest down. His family has set up a GoFundMe to handle the high costs associated with his care.
Awartani and Abdalhamid told NBC that they don’t think about the shooting. Their attention has been with killings in Gaza and in the West Bank by Israeli strikes, with Awartani calling the attack “one drop in the ocean of what’s going on in Palestine”.
More than 24,00 people have been killed and 60,000 injured in Gaza due to Israeli airstrikes, according to the Palestinian health ministry. Israel launched the airstrikes in response to the 7 October attack by Hamas that killed about 1,200.
“What’s going on in Palestine, it’s still going on,” Awartani said. “And, like, that’s more on my mind right now, how there are still people – like, they’re starving to death. There are still people who are being maimed. There are still people who are – like, you know, don’t have access to clean water. There are still people who are, like, being shot at protests. So that, to me, is far more relevant than what happened to me.”
Jason Eaton, 48, was later arrested in connection with the shooting and charged with three counts of attempted second-degree murder. Police have not confirmed if they believe the shooting was premeditated or motivated by hate as an investigation into the attack continues.
Awartani attends Brown University. Ahmed and Abadalhamid are students of Haverford and Trinity colleges, respectively.
The attack on the three friends took place amid sharp increases in Islamophobia and anti-Arab sentiments since Hamas’s 7 October attack in Israel. Jewish groups have also reported a simultaneous increase in cases of antisemitism.
