Palestinian students shot in Vermont speak out: ‘I know that it is a hate crime’

Two Palestinian college students who were shot in Vermont said they suspected they were the targets of a hate crime in their most extensive public remarks since the attack.

Hisham Awartani, Tahseen Ali Ahmad and Kinnan Abdalhamid were shot on 25 November while walking near the home of Awartani’s grandmother in Burlington, Vermont.

In an interview with NBC News on Wednesday, Awartani and Abdalhamid – both 20 – said they believe their shooter took aim at them for being Palestinian.

“I don’t think too much about if there’s gonna be hate crime charges,” Awartani said to NBC News about the triple shooting. “I just care that, like, justice is served. And to me, that is a part of it. But I know that it is a hate crime.”

Awartani added that he wasn’t surprised that he faced violence as a Palestinian, especially having grown up in the occupied West Bank and witnessing Palestinians regularly brutalized by the Israeli army.

“It’s odd because it happened in Burlington, Vermont. It’s not odd because it happened, full stop,” Awartani said, referring to the 25 November shooting.

“In the West Bank growing up, it’s just something that’s normal. Like, so many unarmed young men getting shot by the Israeli army, and they’re just left to bleed out.

“Therefore, when it happened to me, it was like, ‘Oh, this is where it happens. This is it.’”

The three friends had come back from a trip to a local bowling alley, a fun activity meant to celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday.

Awartani and Abdalhamid told NBC they were speaking Arabic and wearing keffiyehs – a traditional headdress that has come to symbolize solidarity with Palestine – when they said they spotted a man waiting on his porch with a loaded firearm.

Awartani and Abdalhamid told NBC that they