Junior Kinnan Abdalhmaid — one of three students shot in Vermont last weekend — is like any other Ford.
He attends labs at the KINSC. He studies at Lutnick library. He sprints at the Alumni Field House.
Kabir Alvaro Hinduja-Obregon, a friend of Abdalhamid’s, describes him as “fun, funny, kind smart, incredibly passionate, and very open to listening to people.”
Over the past year and a half, Abdalhamid and Hinduja-Obregon would go to the DC basement to decompress over a game of ping pong. “He has a very strange way of playing table tennis,” Hinduja-Obregon said in an interview with The Clerk.
During the Thanksgiving break, Abdalhamid reunited with his childhood friends Tahseen Ali Ahmed and Hisham Awartani.
Awartani’s mother tells CBS that the trio are brothers and that their bond is “a brotherhood of friendship but also of intellectual common ground. They just love knowledge and that’s what brought them together and what’s kept them together.”
His two friends remain hospitalized: Ahmed was shot in the chest, and Awartani was paralyzed from the chest down after a bullet lodged in his spinal cord. Jason Eaton pleaded not guilty to three counts of second-degree attempted murder and is currently in jail being held without bail.
Abdalhamid attends Haverford not only because his mother thought the US would be safer, but also because of the “opportunity for a strong liberal arts education,” she told ABC’s The View.
Since arriving two years ago, he quickly befriended many, such as those in his Customs group, on his sports team, and in his classes.
Close friend, junior Tala Qaraqe — who also came to Haverford from the West Bank, told The Clerk that she feels “honored” to be friends with him. “He was always there to support me whenever I was struggling academically or socially,” she said.
Since the outbreak of war in Gaza after October 7th, Abdalhamid has become a more visable campus advocate for Palestinian voices.
At this fall’s Plenary, he spoke in front of the school about the dangers of equating antisemitism and anti Zionism, and also encouraged anyone who experienced antisemitism on campus to speak to someone about it. He also expressed his profound disappointment with President Raymond’s initial response to the attack in a recent article in The Clerk.
While Abdalhamid was shot in the backside and has been discharged from the hospital, he is still recovering both emotionally and physically. Dean McKnight visited him on Sunday, and a close friend from Haverford was with him the whole week, telling the Washington Post that he rushed to Burlington to be “the family member that [Kinnan] didn’t have until family arrived.” His mother, who traveled from the West Bank, arrived on Wednesday.
In Abdalhamid’s absence, his community at Haverford mourned his absence.
“There’s this unresolved anger, there’s this unresolved sadness,” Hinduja-Obregon says.
In recent days, Abdalhamid has appeared on national television to humanize the Palestinian people. “It’s really important to see Palestinians as a diverse population like any other race or ethnicity,” he tells NBC, “We’re just a people like any other.”
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