Three Palestinian students at American universities were shot in Burlington, Vermont, on Saturday evening and treated on Sunday, according to the students’ former school in the West Bank.
The Friends of Ramallah School said in a Facebook post on Sunday that three of its graduates were shot near the University of Vermont campus: Hisham Awartani, who attends Brown University in Rhode Island, Kinnan Abdel Hamid, who attends Haverford, attended college in Pennsylvania, and Tahseen Ahmed, who attended Trinity College in Connecticut.
The school said they all survived with injuries of varying severity.
“We extend our condolences to them and their families and pray for a full recovery, especially given the severity of the injuries, as Hisham was shot in the back, Tahseen was shot in the chest and Kinnan suffered minor injuries,” he said on Facebook . . .
Burlington police said Saturday evening that officers responded to shots fired Saturday evening around 6:30 p.m. and found two people injured at a location near the university campus and a third a short distance away.
Without identifying the victims, the police statement said the first two were treated at the scene and later transported by firefighters to the University of Vermont Medical Center, and that police took the third to the same hospital.
Police have not yet identified or arrested the shooter, according to the statement. A police spokesperson could not be reached on Sunday.
The shooting comes as the United States has seen an increase in Islamophobic and anti-Semitic incidents, including violent attacks and online harassment, since the conflict between Israel and Hamas broke out on October 7.
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The students spoke Arabic and wore the traditional Palestinian keffiyeh, the Palestinian Foreign Ministry said on Sunday, calling on US authorities to impose sanctions on those responsible.
The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), a US-based human rights group, called on state and federal authorities in a statement on Sunday to investigate the shooting as a hate crime.
“The rise in anti-Arab and anti-Palestinian sentiment we are experiencing is unprecedented, and this is yet another example of how this hatred is turning into violence,” said Abed Ayoub, national executive director of the ADC. (Reuters)
Source: La Neta Neta
Karen Clayton is a seasoned journalist and author at The Nation Update, with a focus on world news and current events. She has a background in international relations, which gives her a deep understanding of the political, economic and social factors that shape the global landscape. She writes about a wide range of topics, including conflicts, political upheavals, and economic trends, as well as humanitarian crisis and human rights issues.
