Muslim boy, 6, killed and woman wounded in US in hate crime motivated by Israel-Hamas conflict
The child has been named as Wadea Al-Fayoume, a Palestinian-American boy, while his mother is understood to have been wounded, as ITV News Correspondent Dan Rivers reports
A six-year-old boy has died and a woman has been seriously wounded in a stabbing attack in the US after their landlord - in response to the Israel-Hamas conflict - allegedly singled out the pair because of their Islamic faith.
Joseph M. Czuba, a 71-year-old in Illinois, the US, is accused of fatally stabbing the child and injuring the 32-year-old woman, who are reportedly mother and son, in a hate crime on Sunday.
In the Chicago-area case, officers found the woman and boy late on Saturday morning in a town around 40 miles from Chicago, according to the Will County Sheriff's Office.
The boy was pronounced dead at a hospital, while the woman had multiple stab wounds and was expected to survive.
An autopsy on the child showed he had been stabbed dozens of times.
“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 sheriff's statement said.
According to the Will County sheriff’s office, the woman had called 911 to report that her landlord had attacked her with a knife, adding she then ran into a bathroom and continued to fight him off.
The man suspected in the attack was found outside the home and “sitting upright outside on the ground near the driveway of the residence” with a cut on his forehead, authorities said.
Mr Czuba of Plainfield was charged with first-degree murder, attempted first-degree murder, two counts of hate crimes and aggravated battery with a deadly weapon. He is in custody and awaiting a court appearance.
Authorities did not release the names of the two victims, but the boy's paternal uncle, Yousef Hannon, spoke at a news conference hosted by the Chicago chapter Council on American-Islamic Relations.
There, he was identified as Wadea Al-Fayoume, a Palestinian American boy who recently had turned six. The organisation also identified the other victim as the boy's mother.
“We are not animals, we are humans. We want people to see us as humans, to feel us as humans, to deal with us as humans, because this is what we are,” said Mr Hannon, a Palestinian American who emigrated to the US in 1999 to work.
In recent days, police in US cities and federal authorities have been on high alert for violence driven by antisemitic or Islamophobic sentiments.
FBI officials, along with Jewish and Muslim groups, have reported an increase of hateful and threatening rhetoric.
President Joe Biden said in a statement: “This horrific act of hate has no place in America, and stands against our fundamental values: freedom from fear for how we pray, what we believe, and who we are.”
More than 2,670 Palestinians have been killed, as well as 1,400 Israelis since the start of the fighting over a week ago, officials confirmed on Monday.
The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) have also said it was planning an "air, sea and land offensive" on Gaza, where a huge humanitarian crisis has unfolded.
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