Palestinian student who was shot in Vermont, USA over the Thanksgiving is left paralysed

Palestinian student who was shot in Vermont, US in a hate crime has been left paralysed.

Hisham Awartani a junior at Brown University, was among the three Palestinian college students who were shot in Burlington, Vermont, on Nov 25 evening over the Thanksgiving, in connection with the rising hate-motivated crimes in the US following the Israel-Hamas war.

Hisham Awartani, 20, is paralysed from the chest down after a bullet lodged in his spine, his family confirmed.

Brown University math major Hisham Awartani, is expected to be released from the hospital next week and enter rehabilitation, his mother, Elizabeth Price, told CNN.

“We believe that Hisham will meet this challenge with the same determination I’ve witnessed this week,” Price told the outlet.

She added that the family has started a GoFundMe to help offset the Ivy League junior’s current medical expenses and new “adaptive needs.”

The fund will also help cover costs associated with his rehabilitation and air travel of his family, she said.

 

Hisham Awartani, who grew up in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, was walking with two friends near the University of Vermont campus in Burlington on November 25 when police say Jason Eaton, 48, shot them with a handgun in a suspected hate crime.

Vermont Police arrested a suspect and he has pleaded not guilty.

The two other victims, Kinnan Abdalhamid (a student at Haverford College in Pennsylvania) and Tahseen Ahmed (a student at Connecticut’s Trinity College) were struck in the upper torso and lower extremities and hospitalized in the ICU, police added.

One of the victims was released from the hospital Monday, a source close to the families told CNN.

On Tuesday evening, Abdalhamid’s parents in a statement said they were “extremely relieved” that their son would recover but “know that this tragedy will shape the rest of our lives.”

“Kinnan told us that he was afraid to leave the hospital. Our child may be physically well enough to be out of the hospital, but he is still shaken from this horrific attack,” they said.