He was shot in Vermont. Now he wants to go home to the West Bank

Hisham Awartani and his family on the Brown University campus. Suzanne Gaber hide caption

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Suzanne Gaber

Hisham Awartani and his family on the Brown University campus.

Suzanne Gaber

Hisham Awartani is a college student who was visiting family in Vermont over Thanksgiving break in 2023 when he and two of his friends were shot. All three young men are of Palestinian descent and all three were wearing keffiyehs when the attack happened. They all survived, but Awartani was left paralyzed from the waist down. Over the past year, he's been recovering and adjusting to a new life that involves using a wheelchair.

Producer Suzanne Gaber has been following Awartani's story since the shooting — from his physical recovery to the emotional hurdles he's grappled with at Brown University, where he became a poster child of the divestment movement.

As Awartani prepares to return home to the West Bank for the first time since his injury, Gaber takes us through his year in recovery and what he hopes for as the war in his homeland continues to escalate.

This episode was reported for Notes From America with Kai Wright, a show from WNYC Studios about the unfinished business of our history, and how to break its grip on our future.

Companion Listening:

A Palestinian-American Victim of American Gun Violence Becomes A Reluctant Poster Child (February 19, 2024)

Still In Recovery From Being Shot, Hisham Awartani Commits To a Summer of Activism (June 6, 2024)

Our engineer was Josephine Nyonai.