Ramallah Friends School graduates shot in USA
'The families of the three victims called on law enforcement to conduct "a thorough investigation, including treating this as a hate crime".'
Three college students who were shot and wounded last weekend in Vermont were graduates of Friends School Ramallah.
Of Palestinian descent, the victims were reportedly wearing the Palestinian keffiyeh and speaking in Arabic when they were attacked in Burlington on their way to a family dinner.
The victims have been identified as Hisham Awartani, Tahseen Ahmed and Kinnan Abdalhamid, undergraduate students at Brown University, Haverford University and Trinity College.
The Ramallah Friends School issued a statement on Facebook saying the community was ‘deeply distressed’. ‘We extend our thoughts and prayers to them and their families for a full recovery, especially considering the severity of injuries – as Hisham has been shot in the back, Tahseen in the chest, and Kinnan with minor injuries,’ the post said.
Friends sent messages of support and prayers on social media. One former pupil of a Friends school urged ‘alums’ to ‘unite in standing in solidarity against all forms of violence. It’s the reason many of our families chose these schools for us even if we weren’t Quaker’.
The families of the three victims called on law enforcement to conduct ‘a thorough investigation, including treating this as a hate crime… We will not be comfortable until the shooter is brought to justice’.
Posting on X, Basil Awartani, a cousin of Hisham Awartani, alleged the attack was a hate crime. ‘My cousin Hisham has been shot in the back while walking with his friends in Burlington for simply wearing kuffiyehs and speaking Arabic.’
‘Dangerous performative rhetoric’ and ‘constant dehumanization of Palestinians has a real life cost’.
Since the Israel-Hamas war started in October, there has been a reported rise of Islamophobia and antisemitism in the US. Antisemitic incidents have increased by nearly 400 per cent over 2022, according to the Anti-Defamation League. Meanwhile, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (Cair) reported a 216 per cent increase in requests for help and reports of bias, compared to 2022.
Comments
This article refers to one of the three Palestinian young men shot in an apparent hate crime in Vermont, saying that Kinnan Abdalhamid is an undergraduate student at “Haverford University”. What was meant is that he is a student at Haverford College near to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and America’s oldest Quaker college. Readers will not be surprised that the event was shocking to the college community, and that it responded wonderfully with strong commitment to its Quaker spirit.
Henning Sieverts, Norwich Local Meeting
Haverford College Class of 1956
By SHSieverts@aol.com on 5th December 2023 - 12:18
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