A six-year-old Palestinian American boy was stabbed to death in Chicago by his landlord shouting “You Muslims must die” in an alleged response to the war between Israel and Gaza.
The boy, who was pronounced dead at the hospital, was stabbed 26 times with a large military-style knife. His mom Hanaan was stabbed as well and is in critical condition.
Officers found both victims on Saturday morning at a home in southwest of Chicago.
Police have charged the 71-year-old man with murder and hate crime. Police charged him with first-degree murder, attempted first-degree murder, two counts of hate crimes and aggravated battery with a deadly weapon.
“Detectives were able to determine that both victims in this brutal attack were targeted by the suspect due to them being Muslim and the on-going Middle Eastern conflict involving Hamas and the Israelis,” the Will County Sheriff’s Office in suburban Chicago said in a statement on Sunday.
“We are shocked and disturbed to learn that a landlord in Chicago expressing anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian views broke into a Muslim family’s apartment and attacked them with a knife, injuring the mother and killing her 6-year-old son, Wadea Al-Fayoume,” Council of American Islamic Relations (CAIR) said in a statement.
“The Islamophobic rhetoric and anti-Palestinian racism being spread by politicians, media outlets, and social media platforms must stop. Now,” the group posted on X.
“Every child of Gaza is just as beautiful as him, and the hate that kills them there is alive and well here,” Islamic scholar Omar Sulaiman posted while sharing the news.
