Mourners gathered in a Chicago suburb on Monday for the funeral of a 6-year-old Muslim boy who was stabbed to death over the weekend by a man who police say targeted him and his mother because they were Palestinian Americans. Police said the 6-year-old and his mother – identified as 32-year-old Hanaan Shahin – were attacked by their landlord, Joseph Czuba, on Saturday in Plainfield Township, about 40 miles (64 km) southwest of Chicago. He knocked on the door and attempted to choke the mother and said, ‘You Muslims must die’ and stabbed her.” The boy was stabbed 26 times while his mother suffered multiple wounds. She was expected to survive. The suspect, Czuba, 71, was charged with first-degree murder, attempted first-degree murder, two counts of hate crime and aggravated battery with a deadly weapon, the Will County Sheriff’s Office said.
The Associated Press has the story:
Slain Muslim, Palestinian boy mourned in Illinois, suspect in court
Newslooks- BRIDGEVIEW, Illinois, (AP)
Mourners gathered in a Chicago suburb on Monday for the funeral of a 6-year-old Muslim boy who was stabbed to death over the weekend by a man who police say targeted him and his mother because they were Palestinian Americans.
Services for the boy, identified as Wadea Al-Fayoume, took place at the Mosque Foundation in Bridgeview, Illinois, a community southwest of Chicago known as “Little Palestine” for its heavy concentration of Palestinian Americans.
“He’s a very kind kid,” his uncle, who was not identified, said during a press conference on Monday outside the mosque before the service. “He is in a better place.”
In the basement of the mosque, women and children huddled and cried during the press conference. Outside, dozens of people flanked the speakers, including two men who waved Palestinian flags before the group chatted “Free, Free Palestine.”
The killing comes against the backdrop of a fresh crisis in the Middle East after a deadly attack by Hamas militants on Israeli civilians a week ago and subsequent retaliation by Israel in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.
The conflict has put Jewish and Palestinian Muslim communities in the United States on edge and fearful of a potential backlash against them.
Police said the 6-year-old and his mother – identified as 32-year-old Hanaan Shahin – were attacked by their landlord on Saturday in Plainfield Township, about 40 miles (64 km) southwest of Chicago. The boy was stabbed 26 times while his mother suffered multiple wounds. She was expected to survive.
“This is a heavy day. It is a worst nightmare come true. It is something we’ve tried to warn against,” Ahmed Rehab, executive director of the Chicago office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said on Monday. “It pains me that the sacrificial lamb to this atmosphere was this beautiful young six-year-old boy.”
Iman Negrete, a Palestinian American who lives in Plainfield, is from the same town in the occupied Palestinian territories as the mother. She wept as she stood next to a makeshift memorial made up of stuffed animals, saying she does not feel safe in the community because of her background.
“It’s heartbreaking,” she said, referring to the boy’s death. “He was Muslim, that’s what happened, he was Muslim and this is what they did, this is what this monster did.”
The boy celebrated his sixth birthday two weeks ago, CAIR’s Rehab told a press conference on Sunday.
“He was a lovely boy. Loved his family, friends. He loved soccer, basketball,” he said. “He paid the price for the atmosphere of hate.”
The boy’s mother came from the West Bank to the United States 12 years ago and his father immigrated nine years ago, Rehab said.
SUSPECT CHARGED
The suspect, Joseph Czuba, 71, was charged with first-degree murder, attempted first-degree murder, two counts of hate crime and aggravated battery with a deadly weapon, the Will County Sheriff’s Office said.
Czuba made his initial appearance in a Will County Court on Monday. He was appointed a public defender and ordered detained, according to online court records. Czuba did not enter a plea to the charges.
The public defender who is representing Czuba was not immediately available for comment.
Before the stabbings, there were no known issues or conflicts between Czuba and the family, CAIR said.
The boy’s father, Oday El-Fayoume, told The Daily Beast that Czuba had a “good relationship” with the boy’s mother and son, having built a tree house for the small child outside the home they rented from him.
“He is an angel. Basically a small angel in the form of a person,” El-Fayoume said of his son. “It is hard to picture this man holding a knife about to stab my son.”
The boy’s father received text messages from the child’s mother while she was hospitalized, describing the attack and identifying the assailant, Rehab said.
“He asked his wife … what happened,” Rehab said. “He knocked on the door and attempted to choke her and said, ‘You Muslims must die’ and stabbed her.”
Attorney General Merrick Garland late on Sunday said the U.S. Justice Department would open a federal hate-crime investigation into the attack.
“This incident cannot help but further raise the fears of Muslim, Arab, and Palestinian communities in our country with regard to hate-fueled violence,” the statement said.
Since the outbreak of hostilities in the Middle East last week, there have scattered reports of violence directed at Palestinians and Jewish communities in the United States.
In Dearborn, Michigan, which has one of the largest concentrations of Muslim people in the nation, a man was charged over the weekend with making a social media post that threatened violence against Palestinian-American residents, police said.
A 71-year-old Illinois landlord upset over the Israel-Hamas war attacked a Palestinian American woman with a knife when she proposed they “pray for peace” and killed her 6-year-old son, authorities said Monday.
The details emerged as Joseph Czuba appeared in court on murder, attempted murder and hate crime charges while the boy’s Muslim family prepared to bury him in the Chicago area.
“It is with heavy hearts that we acknowledge this senseless act of hate, which has no place in our community or any society,” said the Mosque Foundation in Bridgeview, where a funeral was held.
Czuba, a Plainfield resident, replied, “Yes, sir,” when asked if he understood the charges and was subsequently returned to jail in Joliet, 50 miles (80.4 kilometers) southwest of Chicago. A Will County judge granted a court-appointed lawyer.
Wadea Al-Fayoume, who had just turned 6, had been stabbed multiple times when sheriff’s deputies discovered him Saturday in response to a 911 call.
“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.
The boy’s mother told investigators that she rents two rooms on the first floor of the Plainfield home while Czuba and his wife live on the second floor, Assistant State’s Attorney Michael Fitzgerald said in a court filing.
“He was angry at her for what was going on in Jerusalem,” Fitzgerald said. “She responded to him, ‘Let’s pray for peace.’ … Czuba then attacked her with a knife.”
The boy’s mother fought him off and went into a bathroom where she stayed until police arrived. Wadea, meanwhile, was in his own room, Fitzgerald said.
The mother was identified by family members as Hanaan Shahin, 32, though authorities used a different spelling for her name as well as her son’s name.
“The brutality of the attack, which involved a military-grade knife, has shocked us all,” the Mosque Foundation said.
Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker said Wadea should have been attending school Monday, yet his “parents will wake up without their son.”
Jewish and Muslim groups have reported an increase of hateful rhetoric in the wake of the war.
“We are not animals, we are humans,” said the boy’s uncle, Yousef Hannon. “We want people to see us as humans, to feel us as humans, to deal with us as humans.”
Police found Czuba with a cut on his forehead, sitting on the ground outside the home. The public defender’s office did not immediately return messages seeking comment about the charges against him.
Czuba’s wife, Mary, told police that her husband feared they would be attacked by people of Middle Eastern descent and had withdrawn $1,000 from a bank “in case the U.S. grid went down,” Fitzgerald said in the court document.
The Justice Department said it opened a hate crime investigation into the attack.
“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,” President Joe Biden said.
