When the conflict began in Gaza following the October 7 attack, the family of Hisham Awartani decided he should remain in the US, where he’s a student at Brown University, rather than return home for the holidays to Ramallah, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, NPR reports.

“My husband didn’t want Hisham to come back for Christmas,” says Awartani’s mother Elizabeth Price. “He thought our son would be safer [in the US] than in Palestine.”

On Saturday, Awartani, 20, was one of three men of Palestinian descent shot while visiting family in Burlington, Vermont. According to Price, her son was severely injured.

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