Muslim group, political leaders decry stabbing of Illinois boy over Gaza war

The Muslim civil liberties organization says the fatal stabbing of a 6-year-old boy and his mother, who is expected to survive, is “our worst nightmare,” and part of a disturbing spike in hate calls and emails since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war. The group cites text messages exchanged among family members that showed the attacker had made disparaging remarks about Muslims.

“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,” a sheriff’s statement says after the Chicago-area killing.

The boy was identified as Wadea Al-Fayoume, a Palestinian-American boy who had recently turned 6.

US President Joe Biden says in a statement that “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.”

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker calls the act “evil.”

“To take a six-year-old child’s life in the name of bigotry is nothing short of evil,” said Pritzker. “Wadea should be heading to school in the morning. Instead, his parents will wake up without their son. This wasn’t just a murder—it was a hate crime. And every single Illinoisan — including our Muslim, Jewish, and Palestinian neighbors — deserves to live free from the threat of such evil.”

Yousef Hannon, the boy’s uncle speaks out against hate at a news conference.

“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,” says Hannon, a Palestinian-American who emigrated to the U.S. in 1999 to work, including as a public school teacher.