A 6-year-old killed in anti-Muslim attack in US

While the ground warfare between Israel and Hamas is imminent, the U.S. is shocked as a six-year-old Palestinian boy was brutally killed. As the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) warned about the increasing threats of terror attacks and crimes due to the war in the Middle East, U.S. President Joe Biden said that Americans must come together and reject Islamophobia and all forms of bigotry and hatred.

The police authorities of Will County, Illinois, announced on Sunday (local time) that Joseph M. Czuba was charged with murdering Wadea Al-Fayoume and severely wounding the boy’s mother in a knife attack on Saturday morning. Czuba was the owner of the house where Wadea and his family lived, and the victims' family was Palestinian Americans.

According to the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the local police, Czuba stabbed Wadea’s mother on Saturday morning, saying that Muslims like them should be killed. While his mother called the police, the man stabbed Wadea 26 times. Wadea’s mother was stabbed 10 times, which caused severe injury, and taken to a hospital. “Wadea’s mother testified that the suspect was upset about recent news on Hamas,” said the CAIR in an interview with the New York Times.

President Biden said he was shocked and would not remain silent on hatred, warning against spreading hate crimes.

“Here in the U.S., we cannot and do not discount the possibility that Hamas or other foreign terrorist organizations could exploit the conflict to call on their supporters to conduct attacks on our own soil,” said FBI Director Christopher Wray during a press conference. Concerns over hate crimes and terror attacks due to the Middle Eastern war are growing, with cases such as a French high school teacher killed by a 20-year-old Muslim man, leading to the highest safety warning level in the country.


Hyoun-Soo Kim kimhs@donga.com