On November 25, Hisham Awartani, a 20-year-old junior at Brown University, was out for an evening walk with two Palestinian friends visiting relatives in Burlington, Vermont. Suddenly, they were the victims of an unprovoked attack, shot by a man who came off his porch to kill them. While both friends have recovered almost completely, Hisham has a bullet lodged in his spine, paralyzing him so that he may never walk again.
“What was my crime? What heinous deed did I commit for me to deserve to get shot and lose control of my legs? I was Palestinian…..
”It is of no importance that the person who shot me was not Israeli, because the hate that made this possible was made in Israel. It dehumanized Palestinians on an industrial scale, and was sent to the U.S. in neat little airwave packages.
Hisham then relates an experience he had at his university ten days before he was shot.
On November 15 I joined my fellow Brown students to write the names of thousands of Palestinians killed in the war on Gaza. They gave us a document issued by the Gaza Health Ministry, and out of curiosity the first thing I did was look up my name. There were 30 results. 13 people named Hisham and 17 with Hisham as a middle name.
I didn’t know how to feel. My name was not a common one. The list was incomplete and only included around 6,500 names….
Hisham muses how those Hishams remain unknown to the world, while he has become the subject of many news articles and TV programs.
Had I been one of those Hishams in Gaza my picture would not have been on the BBC or CNN. Instead of being interviewed, my mother would be fleeing south or already killed, trapped under the rubble with me.
Hisham concludes his article, showing his concern for the people of Gaza.
I am the Hisham you know. I lived. My story is being told. The 13 other Hishams were killed, their stories forever erased. They were human and they did not have to prove that to anyone. They knew no respite, no justice, no peace.
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On December 2, Hisham’s family and friends set up a GoFundMe support page to raise the $2 million needed for his first year of care and rehabilitation. As of 9 pm Sunday, December 10, the fund had received $1,518,930 from 19,800 donations. The GoFundMe page also has a brief video showing Hisham being moved out of the hospital and on his way to a rehabilitation center.