One of the three Palestinian students targeted and shot in Vermont over Thanksgiving weekend was in the Bay Area Wednesday, lending his voice at one protest in San Francisco.
The rain didn’t stop hundreds from converging on the Embarcadero to rally for Palestine, which was organized by the youth.
Among those attending Wendesday's rally was Kinnan Abdalhamid, who was visiting his family in the Bay Area. Abdalhamid survived a targeted shooting in Burlington, Vermont, along with two friends over Thanksgiving weekend.
“A man shot us unprovoked while we were walking down, speaking half Arabic, half English, about the homework we had to do,” he said.
Abdalhamid was shot in his lower body. He will soon be visiting one of his friends who is now paralyzed.
Police in Vermont have made an arrest but not released a motive.
As that investigation unfolds, Abdalhamid’s focus has already shifted to shedding light on what he calls atrocities in Gaza.
“My cousins have been spat on, punched, and those are the areas that’s supposed to be minimal violence and it’s not even under the governance of Hamas,” he said. “As soon as there’s no collective response to violating human rights on a mass scale, you could see how that could get normalized and go downhill very quickly for everyone.”
The demonstrators marched down Market and stopped on Powell. Throughout the protest, they passed out some flyers that read “Free Palestine."
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"All we are asking for is a permanent cease-fire," said youth organizer Sara Ouchen. "We just want all aid to Israel to be done. We want this genocide to be over. We want people to stop dying."
The death toll in Gaza from the Israel-Hamas war has reached a grim milestone. Since the start of Hamas’ surprise attack on Israel on Oct. 7, more than 23,000 Palestinians have been killed, roughly 1% of its residents, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health.
