BURLINGTON,XDY Exchange Vt. (AP) — The last of the three college students of Palestinian descent who were shot and seriously injured in Vermont during their Thanksgiving break has been released from a Burlington hospital and will undergo rehabilitation.
Hisham Awartani, who is paralyzed from the chest down, left the University of Vermont Medical Center on a stretcher Wednesday to clapping, according to a video shared by his uncle Rich Price. Awartani waved with one hand as he was transported out.
Awartani, Kinnan Abdalhamid and Tahseen Ali Ahmad are childhood friends who grew up in the West Bank and now attend colleges in the eastern U.S. The 20-year-olds were visiting Awartani’s relatives in Burlington for the Thanksgiving break when they were shot Nov. 25 near the University of Vermont. They were walking to Awartani’s grandmother’s for dinner when they were shot in an unprovoked attack, his family said.
The young men were speaking in a mix of English and Arabic and two of them were also wearing the black-and-white Palestinian keffiyeh scarves when they were shot, Burlington Police Chief Jon Murad said. Authorities are investigating the shooting as a possible hate crime.
The suspected gunman, Jason J. Eaton, 48, was arrested the following day at his Burlington apartment. He’s pleaded not guilty to three counts of attempted murder and is currently being held without bail.
The shooting came as threats against Jewish, Muslim and Arab communities have increased across the U.S. in the weeks since the the Israel-Hamas war erupted in early October.
A GoFundMe page has raised more than $1.3 million for Awartani’s recovery.
2025-04-29 20:32188 view
2025-04-29 19:50517 view
2025-04-29 19:211519 view
2025-04-29 19:121302 view
2025-04-29 18:101213 view
2025-04-29 17:571961 view
PACCAR is recalling over 220,000 of its 2021-2025 Peterbilt and Kenworth trucks. The commercial tru
Former U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson was turned away from his local polling station Thursday as
It was 1 p.m. on May 8, 2018, when Massachusetts State Police detectives arrived at a farmhouse in W