Two Palestinian college students shot while walking in Vermont in late November claimed the suspects lied in wait for them and targeted them because of a “bigger systemic problem” of hatred.
Kinan Abdalhamid, 20, said Jason Eaton appeared to be waiting for him and two of his friends before he allegedly opened fire on the night of Nov. 25.
“I don't know why he was standing on the porch with a loaded pistol,” Kinan Abdalhamid said. He spoke in a sit-down interview with NBC News that will air on Wednesday.
Abdalhamid, a student at Haverford College in suburban Philadelphia, was walking in Burlington with lifelong friends Tahseen Ali Ahmad and Hisham Awartani, both 20, when gunshots rang out. I recalled.
The three young men, who grew up together in the West Bank, all spoke a mix of Arabic and English and wore Palestinian keffiyehs, but Eaton deliberately singled them out, NBC said. Thing.
“Tahseen was screaming. He was shot first. Hisham did not make a sound. As soon as Tahseen started screaming, I was running,” Abdalhamid added.
Abdalhamid was then shot in the right hip, grazing his mother Tamimi. he told CBS News shortly after the attack..
“I didn't fully realize it until I looked at my phone. I saw blood on my phone. I thought, 'Oh no, I've been shot,'” said the Brown University student. Awarthani told NBC.
The two were interviewed at Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital in Charlestown, Massachusetts. Eaton was paralyzed from the chest down by the bullet in his spine, and Awartani is receiving treatment.
Nearly two months after the shooting, it remains unclear whether authorities will charge Eaton with a hate crime, the newspaper said.
The 48-year-old, who was fired from his job weeks before the shooting, has already pleaded not guilty to three charges of attempted murder.
The victims and their families maintain that the shooting was a hate-motivated attack from the beginning.
“I don't really think about whether or not I'm going to be charged with a hate crime. All I care about is that justice is served. And for me, that's part of it. We know it is a crime,” Awartani explained.
The students, who grew up in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, said they were familiar with anti-Palestinian sentiment and violence.
“Because that’s weird. [the shooting] It happened in Burlington, Vermont. It’s not strange because it happened, please stop it completely,” Awarthani said.
“For those of us who grew up in the West Bank, it's very normal. Similarly, so many unarmed young people are shot by Israeli forces and left to bleed,” he added. Ta.
“So when it happened to me, I was like, 'Oh, here's where it happens.' This is it,” he reasoned.
At the time of the shooting, Awartani, Abdulhamid, and Ahmad were spending the Thanksgiving holiday at Awartani's grandmother's house, which was just around the corner from where the shooting occurred.
A few weeks ago, on October 7, international tensions over the Israeli-Palestinian issue reached a crisis point when Hamas terrorists from the Gaza Strip invaded southern Israel and massacred 1,200 people.
Awartani and Abdalhamid spoke to NBC as the Israel-Hamas war surpasses 100 days and hostility toward the Palestinians increases.
“I think there were a lot of attempts that just completely demonized us.” [the shooter]But we recognize that this is part of a larger systemic problem,” Abdalhamid said.
“But the truth is, he is a symptom of a larger problem. And the root cause, again, as I said, is systemic dehumanization. [of Palestinians],” he continued.
“That has always been the case in Western discourse, including through the media. Similarly, Palestinians are assumed to be terrorists by default,” Awarthani agreed.
“And when he saw us, it was like he connected the dots,” he said of Eaton.
Awartani and Abdalhamid said they were not thinking about the shootings because they were preoccupied with the news of what was happening in the Gaza Strip.
More than 24,000 people are believed to have been killed in the small region as of mid-January, according to the Hamas-linked Palestinian Health Ministry.
In relation to the Gaza war, Awarthani said the shooting incident was “just a drop in the ocean of what is happening in Palestine.”
As Awartani adjusts to his life-altering injury, he said, “I take comfort in the fact that I have access to this care, that I can receive this physical therapy, and that I can do it.” added. I know, let's go to a good hospital.
“When I hear that, I think of other people in Gaza, people who are in wheelchairs or disabled by bombing,” he pointed out.
As for his future plans, the Ivy Leaguer joked that there will be more than a few challenges ahead.
“Well, I haven't gotten through TSA yet, but I think it's going to be much more difficult,” he said of the bullet lodged in his spine.
