A landlord stabbed a mother and her 6-year-old son, killing the child, because the victims were Muslim and because of the war between Israel and Hamas. Deputies in Will County, Illinois, called Joseph M. Czuba’s alleged actions a “senseless and cowardly act of violence.”
Authorities said that the mother — identified by civil rights organization CAIR-Chicago as Hanaan Shahin — called 911 on Saturday morning to say that her landlord had attacked her with a knife. According to deputies, she said she ran into the bathroom and continued to fight him off as she dialed 911.
“According to written text messages reportedly sent to the father of the boy by the mother from the hospital and shared with CAIR-Chicago, the landlord who had been angry with what he was seeing in the news knocked on their door, and when she opened, he tried to choke her and proceeded to attack her with a knife, yelling ‘you Muslims must die!’” CAIR-Chicago said. “When she ran into the bathroom to call 911, she came out to find that he had stabbed her six-year-old son to death.”
The organization identified the child as 6-year-old Wadea Al-Fayoume. He celebrated his birthday a couple of weeks before he died
