Authorities said the stabbing death of Wadea Al-Fayoume, a Palestinian American boy, was a hate crime.
U.S. officials who’ve used inflammatory anti-Palestinian rhetoric amid the Israel-Hamas war are facing criticism after an alleged hate crime in Illinois, in which authorities say a 6-year-old Palestinian American boy and his mother were repeatedly stabbed on Saturday.
Investigators said the boy, Wadea Al-Fayoume, was stabbed 26 times at his home in Plainfield by the family’s landlord, 71-year-old Joseph Czuba. Wadea died at the hospital. His mother, Hanaan Shahin, was allegedly stabbed more than a dozen times and is expected to survive.
In the aftermath of Hamas’ attack, which some have labeled “Israel’s 9/11,” the stabbing incident in Illinois sounds eerily similar to the post-Sept. 11 hate crime killing of Balbir Singh Sodhi, which I discussed last month in a ReidOut Blog about post-9/11 Islamophobia.
“Detectives were able to determine that both victims in this brutal attack were targeted by the suspect due to them being Muslim and the ongoing Middle Eastern conflict involving Hamas and the Israelis,” the sheriff’s office said in a news release.
The killing comes amid a rise in anti-Palestinian invective.
