A 6-Year-Old Boy Was Killed in an Apparent Anti-Muslim Attack
Authorities in Illinois believe a landlord stabbed his tenants in a hate crime related to the Israel-Hamas conflict.
A man fatally stabbed a 6-year-old Palestinian American boy and seriously wounded his mother in a suburb near Chicago this past weekend, an act of violence seemingly motivated by “the ongoing Middle Eastern conflict involving Hamas and the Israelis.” That’s according to the Will County Sheriff’s Office, which issued a statement saying the victims’ landlord, 71-year-old Joseph Czuba, targeted his tenants for being Muslim. Czuba has been charged with first-degree murder, attempted first-degree murder, two counts of a hate crime and aggravated battery with a deadly weapon.
“Our hearts are heavy, and our prayers are with the darling boy and his mother,” Ahmed Rehab, the executive director of the Chicago chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, said in a statement following the attack.
According to the New York Times, the boy, identified as Wadea Al-Fayoume by a family member and CAIR, was at home with his 32-year-old mother in Plainfield Township when Czuba attacked them with a serrated knife. In text messages to the boy’s father from the hospital, obtained by CAIR, the mother — who has not been identified by name and is expected to survive her injuries — reportedly claimed that Czuba, angry with what he was seeing on the news, knocked on the family’s door and tried to choke her, then attacked her with the knife while yelling, “You Muslims must die!” She reportedly sustained a dozen stab wounds when she ran into the bathroom and called 911 while fighting off Czuba. Per CAIR, the woman said she came out of the bathroom to find that the landlord had stabbed Wadea 26 times. “It all happened in seconds,” she wrote. Wadea was later pronounced dead at a local hospital.
The apparent hate crime occurred as Israel intensified violent retaliation against Hamas, the militant group that controls the Gaza Strip, following the organization’s brutal surprise attack against Israel on October 7. Hamas took at least 199 people hostage and killed 1,300 others; in return, Gaza officials report that Israel’s military has killed over 2,670 people and counting. The Israeli government has also cut off resources within the territory, leaving 2.3 million residents — approximately half of whom are under 18 years old — struggling to find clean water, access medical care, and use electricity as generators fail. In a statement last week, Biden made it “crystal clear” that the administration stands with Israel and will ensure it has “what it needs to take care of its citizens, defend itself, and respond” to the Hamas attack. Several days later, he urged against an occupation of Gaza.
On Sunday, Biden said in a statement that he was “shocked and sickened” by the Illinois assault. Meanwhile, one day after the stabbing in Illinois, a Michigan man was charged with making a terrorism threat after asking on Facebook whether anyone in Metro Detroit wanted to “go to Dearborn & hunt Palestinians,” per the Detroit News. The FBI says it has seen a spike in threats against Jewish and Muslim Americans alike.
The Department of Justice opened a federal hate crimes investigation into the Illinois attack on Sunday, while Illinois state police said in a statement that they’re coordinating with other agencies to respond to an “elevated level of threats of violence and hate crimes related to the current conflict.” The Islamophobic attack took place less than 30 miles away from an area often referred to as “Little Palestine,” a hub of Arab restaurants and shops near a large Palestinian American community. Abdelnasser Rrashid, a Palestinian American Democratic Illinois state representative, has said the attack was “directly connected to dehumanizing of Palestinians.” Czuba is scheduled to make his first court appearance on Monday, as Wadea’s family prepared for his funeral.
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