The family of one of three Palestinian-American college students shot in Vermont last month revealed that their son is paralyzed from the chest down after a bullet lodged in his spinal cord. Hisham Awartani, 20, a student at Brown University and originally from the Israeli-occupied West Bank, was walking with two friends near the University of Vermont campus in Burlington on November 25 when they were shot at by Jason Eaton, 48, who allegedly fired at them in a hate crime. Eaton has pleaded not guilty.
Also involved in the incident, Taqsim Ali Ahmad, a student at Haverford College in Pennsylvania, and Kinan Abdul Hamid, a student at Trinity College in Connecticut, are expected to fully recover. However, Awartani, who was visiting his grandmother during the Thanksgiving holiday with his friends, has received a more serious diagnosis, according to a statement from his family seeking donations for his medical expenses.
The Awartani family wrote on their GoFundMe page, which has raised over $200,000 as of Sunday morning, "He has shown remarkable resilience, strength, and courage, as well as a sense of humor, even as the reality of his paralysis sets in." They noted that Awartani, who is of Palestinian-Irish descent, hopes to start the next semester at college on time despite his paralysis.
This shooting incident occurred during a time of increasing threats and reports of incidents related to Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, and hostility towards Arabs in the United States since the outbreak of conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamic resistance movement Hamas on October 7. Eaton faces charges of attempted murder and is being held without bail while authorities investigate whether the shooting in Vermont was a hate crime.
According to the charges filed in court, the students were wearing Palestinian keffiyehs and speaking a mix of English and Arabic when they were shot at.
