Three American students of Palestinian descent, wearing the traditional Palestinian headscarf, were shot and attacked in the city of Burlington on Saturday evening (Vermont) by an as yet unidentified individual.

He Burlington Police Department reported in a statement this Sunday that a white man approached the youths as they were walking and “without saying anything, fired at least four bullets and is believed to have fled on foot.”

Two of them were injured in the torso and one in the lower limbs. Two of the victims are stable and one was seriously injured..

That’s what the journalists accompanying the president say Joe Bidenthe president was informed of what happened and “will continue to receive updates as authorities gather more information.”

Police did not identify the victims but said they were all in their 20s and were visiting the family of one of them for Thanksgiving. All three are of Palestinian descent and two are U.S. citizens, while the other is a legal resident.

Burlington Police Chief Jon Murad and Mayor Miro Weinberger said: the injured could be victims of a hate crimebut they said authorities have not confirmed it.

In a statement, the NGO ADC (Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee) said that after reviewing the information initially provided, there are “reasons to believe that this shooting occurred because the victims are Arabs.”

The organization identified the students as Hisham Awartanifrom Brown University; Kinnan Abdalhamidfrom Haverford University, and Tahseen Ahmedfrom Trinity University.

“ADC calls on Vermont authorities to investigate this shooting as a hate crime. In addition, ADC has contacted the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to also request an immediate hate crime investigation,” the statement said.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, today issued a proposal A $10,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the perpetrator.

CAIR also called on state and federal law enforcement authorities in Vermont to investigate a possible racial motive for the shooting.

A few weeks ago, Biden reported that he had directed Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas and Attorney General Merrick Garland to strengthen protections for the Jewish, Muslim and Arab-American communities in the wake of the war between Israel and Hamas. (JO)