Palestinian students say they were targeted by alleged Vermont gunman

The three Palestinian students shot in Vermont in November say they were targeted by the alleged gunman due of their nationality.

In an exclusive with NBC News's Tom Llamas, Hisham Awartani, Kinnan Abdalhamid and Tahseen Ali Ahmad said they think the shooter had seen them before and was possibly waiting for them when they were shot Nov. 25.

The men, all 20 years old, were visiting Awartani’s grandmother for Thanksgiving. Heading back from bowling, they were walking the streets of Burlington. They told NBC News that Awartani and Ahmad were wearing keffiyehs, a scarf that is a symbol of Palestinian solidarity, and were speaking in Arabic with some English words.

Abdalhamid said Ahmad was shot first and was screaming. Awartani didn’t make a sound. Abdalhamid said he began to run.

Jason Eaton, 48, who is accused of shooting the three men near the University of Vermont, pleaded not guilty to three counts of attempted second-degree murder.  

Police have not released a motive for the shooting and said the investigation is ongoing. But the men told NBC News they have no doubt they were shot because they are Palestinian.

Awartani said he knows it was a hate crime but “doesn’t think too much about if there’s gonna be hate crime charges.”

Abdalhamid said the gunman is a symptom of a larger issue “and the root cause is, again, like I said, systemic dehumanization.”

“It’s something that, you know, has always been the case, like, in, Western discourse through the media. Like, the Palestinian is assumed by default to be terrorist,” Awartani said. “And when he saw us, it was like — he just connected the dots.”

The shooting was part of a wider rise in threats and violence against Jewish, Muslim and Arab communities across the United States since the beginning of the Isreal-Hamas war.

Since Hamas invaded Israel in an Oct. 7 surprise attack killing 1,200 Israelis and taking more than 200 hostages, Israel has launched a counteroffensive that has killed more than 23,000 Palestinians. Millions more Palestinians in Gaza have been displaced from their homes, and the United Nations has warned of a famine in the enclave.

Awartani, who was shot in the spine and paralyzed from the chest down, said he is grateful he has access to the care he needs and thinks of the many people in Gaza who have been disabled and don’t have access to medical treatment.