A 6-year-old Palestinian boy was stabbed 26 times by his anti-Muslim landlord in Chicago, a horrible case of islamophobia which as local officials say, was triggered by Israel-Hamas war.
This Sunday, the Chicago police announced in a statement that according to first-hand evidence, an anti-Muslim landlord killed a six-year-old Palestinian Muslim boy and badly injured his mother when he entered their home with a 12-inch military knife.
The police said that the attacker’s motive for the horrible murder of the Palestinian child was the family’s Islamic beliefs as well as the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas. “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,” Chicago’s Sheriff Office said in a statement posted to social media early this Monday.
The police statement noted on the details of the tragic murder that the landlord first broke into the home of the Muslim family and proceeded to choke and stab the mother, 32-year-old Hanaan Shahin. But she could get away from the attacker and find her way to the bathroom, where she could call 911 for help.
However, when she out of the bathroom to get her six-year-old son Wadea Al-Fayoume, she found him with a knife stuck in his tiny body, stabbed 26 times with a seven-inch blade military knife.
A few minutes after the call, the police arrived and arrested 71-year-old Joseph Czuba in the crime scene, accusing him of a hate crime. He was charged with first-degree murder, attempted murder in the first degree, two counts of hate crime, and aggravated battery with a deadly weapon.
Chicago’s horrible crime, a direct result of Islamophobia in the West
Explaining the details of the crime at a press conference on Sunday, Ahmed Rehab, the executive director of the Chicago Council on American–Islamic Relations (Cair), a Muslim civil rights advocacy group, noted that while the blame lies on the murderer, the US government and all those who have created this hateful atmosphere against Muslims must also be held responsible.
“I ask all people of conscience, to what extent have we created an atmosphere in which someone who may not have committed such an act this senseless, this meaningless… to what extent was this person radicalized and brainwashed by this lopsided, one-sided atmosphere that fans the flames of hatred of Muslims and Palestinians? What level of blind hatred can cause such an act?” Rehab said, standing next to the boy’s father who, according to Rehab, could not find the strength to speak.
Since Hamas attacked Israel last Saturday, Israel has been bombing the densely populated Gaza Strip, killing at least 2,400 Palestinians and wounding more than 7,000, with a large majority of them being women and children.
Violence against Muslims, especially Palestinians, has been increasing in the US at a worrying pace these days. Just on this past Wednesday, according to police reports, a group of men who were carrying Israeli flags and shouting anti-Palestinian statements attacked and punched for several times an 18-year-old Palestinian man in Brooklyn. The same night, and ion the same area in Brooklyn, two men attacked two other who were just holding Palestinian flags. The attackers grabbed one of the flags, hit one man over the head with it and then ran away, with no arrest being reported in neither case.
