Three students Palestinians were shot in Burlington, Vermont, on Saturday evening (25). According to initial information, the young people went to a family dinner to celebrate Thanksgiving, a national holiday.
The victims have been identified as, according to AlJazeera Hisham Awartaniwho studies at Brown University; Kinnan Abdel Hamidstudent at Haverford University, and Tahseen Ahmedfrom Trinity College.
Awartani was shot in the back, Hamid in the chest and Ahmed suffered minor injuries. The relative of one of the teenagers published the report on social media. According to Burlington Police Chief Jon Murad, they are wore keffiyehs (black and white checkered scarf, usually worn around the neck or head) and were speaking Arabic when a white man shot. Two of the young people are in the intensive care unit in the hospital.
“My cousin Hisham was shot in the back while walking with his friends in Burlington for simply wearing a keffiyeh and speaking Arabic. The dangerous performative rhetoric of US experts and politicians, as well as the constant dehumanization of Palestinians, has resulted in a real loss of life,” wrote Basil Awartani, a relative of one of the victims, on X, formerly Twitter.
The police still don’t know Motivation for the shootbut the family believes it was a hate crime, sparked by War in the Middle East between Hamas and Israel. The country has the support of the United States.