Three Palestinian students studying at American colleges were shot Saturday night in Burlington, Vermont, and are being treated, according to their old school in the West Bank.

Ramallah Friends School reported via Facebook today that three of its graduates were shot near the University of Vermont.

They are Hisham Awartani, a student at Brown University in Rhone Island, Kinan Abdel Hamid, who is studying at Haverford College in Pennsylvania, and Tahsin Ahmed, a student at Trinity College in Connecticut.

The school reported that all of them were injured. “We send our thoughts and wishes to them and their families for a full recovery, given the seriousness of their injuries, as Hisham was shot in the back, Tahsin in the chest and Keenan is slightly injured,” the school said in its post. .

Burlington police said late Saturday night that officers responded to a call about a shooting and found two wounded near the university and a third a short distance away. Authorities did not release the identities of the victims, saying only that all were taken to the University of Vermont Medical Center.

The perpetrator remains unknown.

This episode takes place at a time when the US is experiencing an increase in Islamophobic and anti-Semitic actssuch as violent attacks and online harassment since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas on October 7.

The students spoke Arabic and wore the traditional Palestinian headscarf, according to the Palestinian Authority’s foreign ministry, which called on US authorities to hold those responsible accountable. Also, the Arab American Commission Against Discrimination asked state and federal law enforcement agencies to investigate the shooting as a hate crime.