Hate Crime Victim Kinnan Abdalhamid and Other Haverford College Students Push Administration to Support Gaza Ceasefire
Jennifer Hernandez
After a tense fall semester in which Haverford College students urged the administration to speak out against the genocide in Gaza, Haverford College students have returned to campus this week, and some say they plan to continue to pressure the administration to call for a Gaza ceasefire. Founded by Quakers in 1833, the college is located 10 miles outside Philadelphia in Haverford, Pennsylvania.
Haverford’s Students for Peace (SFP) organized a weeklong sit-in December 6–13 following a hate crime attack against one of their own. On Thanksgiving weekend, Haverford student, Kinnan Abdalhamid, was shot at close range while walking with his two friends, Tahseen Ali Ahmad and Hisham Awartani near the University of Vermont in Burlington. The three Palestinian youth were speaking a mix of Arabic and English and were wearing keffiyehs, a traditional Palestinian scarf, when a lone gunman, Jason J. Eaton, 48, of Vermont, shot at them. The gunman is described as white. The shooting left Awartani paralyzed from the chest down.
Haverford College student Kinnan Abdalhamid (center) and his friends Hisham Awartani (L) and Tahseen Ahmed (R), all of Palestinian descent, were shot Thanksgiving weekend in Burlington, Vermont. (Photo: courtesy of Council on American-Islamic Relations)
Haverford Students for Peace (SFP) was formed in the wake of the shooting to “advocate for the safety of Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim communities at Haverford College,” the group stated on Instagram. The sit-in aimed to pressure Haverford administrators to call for a ceasefire in Palestine and support the school’s Palestinian students.
In a December email to students, Haverford College President Wendy E. Raymond stated that the sit-in, which was held at the school’s Founders Hall, impeded students’ ability to pursue their studies and staff and faculty’s duties, according to Haverford’s independent student newspaper, The Clerk.
Reflecting on the past 110 days of genocide in Gaza, Abdalhamid, who was shot in his lower extremities, told Al-Bustan in an interview that he believes that student activism will continue this semester. “Hopefully the school and the student body will continue to pressure different members of the administration who haven't used their platform to call for a ceasefire,” he said.
“Wendy Raymond purposely failed to recognize the big picture of why violence has happened to me and other Palestinians across the country, which is the systematic dehumanization perpetrated by complicity in an ongoing genocide,” Abdalhamid said. “It’s as simple as that. It takes just a bit of moral courage. However, it’s still [Raymond’s] responsibility as someone in her position to condemn blatant atrocities so they do not become moralized, especially in an institution like this.”
Haverford College students staged a sit-in at Founders Hall in December to urge the administration to support a ceasefire in Gaza. Photo Credit: Zhao Gu Gammage
Fellow SFP organizer, Ellie Baron, a 20-year-old college junior and the granddaughter of a Holocaust survivor, agreed with Abdalhamid.
“We all have a responsibility to speak up, particularly as students at an American higher education institution,” Baron said in an interview with Al-Bustan. “We have a unique amount of power to make our voice heard. And we should use that power and not just let it sit idle.”
Haverford should leverage its power and call for a ceasefire, Baron said. “The Quaker values that we are taught include anti-militarism, anti-violence, and anti-war. Where are those values during a time where they should be applied and discussed?”
Haverford College’s Students for Peace organized a sit-in at Founders Hall in December to raise awareness about the genocide in Gaza. Photo credit: Zhao Gu Gammage
Last semester, hundreds of Haverford students called on the college to practice peace, nonviolence, and anti-racism in accordance with its Quaker values. Days into their December sit-in, 693 students signed their names in support of SFP’s demands: academic leniency, culturally competent counselors, support for faculty and student activism, accountability, restorative action, and transparency from Haverford’s Board of Managers.
Haverford administrators initially declared support for student protests, with a college representative saying, “With respect to the sit-in, we support our students’ rights to expressive freedom and peaceful protest while advancing our shared educational goals for Haverford.” However, Haverford later issued an ultimatum, ordering students to disperse from Founders Hall or face disciplinary action.
On December 13, Abdalhamid led students in delivering over 500 letters written by students to President Raymond calling for an immediate and permanent ceasefire. A college junior, Abdalhamid was born in the United States and raised in the Occupied West Bank. He is pre-med and plans to remain in the U.S. after graduation.
The sit-in created a space of “community care,” SFP stated on Instagram, noting that faculty hosted teach-ins there, and students had an opportunity to learn about the crisis in Palestine.
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Jennifer Hernandez is a bilingual Dominican journalist. A Media Fellow at Al-Bustan, she holds a MA in Creative Writing and English from SNHU and a Modern Journalism Certificate from NYU. She has reported for AL DÍA, where she covered higher education and culture. A passionate bibliophile, she lives in Philadelphia.