Wadea al-Fayoume (inset) was laid to rest on Monday after he was stabbed to death (Picture: Armando L. Sanchez/Chicago Tribune via AP, Reuters)
A funeral was held on Monday for Wadea al-Fayoume, the six-year-old child stabbed 26 times by his landlord in an attack that investigators say was motivated by the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict.
According to authorities, Al-Fayoume and his mother were attacked by their landlord, 71-year-old Joseph Czuba.
His mother, Hanaan Shahin, survived the attack. But Wadea was killed after beeing stabbed 26 times with a ‘military-style’ knife, investigators said.
According to detectives at the Will County Sheriff’s Office, the mother and son were ‘targeted by the suspect due to them being Muslim and the on-going Middle Eastern conflict involving Hamas and the Israelis.’
Wadea al-Fayoume was stabbed 26 times by his landlord (Picture: via REUTERS)
Wadea al-Fayoume was described as a ‘lovely boy,’ who was loved soccer and basketball (Picture: Courtesy Hela Yousef
Wadea’s father, Oday al-Fayoume, told the Daily Beast that his son’s last words to his mother were: ‘I’m fine.’
The shocked father said the family previously had good relations with their landlord, who even helped Wadea build a treehouse in the backyard of the property they rented form him.
‘He was a lovely boy. Loved his family, friends. He loved soccer, basketball,’ said Ahmed Rehab, the Chicago director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). ‘He paid the price for the atmosphere of hate.’
Rehab said his mother, Shahin, immigrated from the West Bank 12 years ago.
A shrine for Wadea al-Fayoume is built around the house where he was stabbed (Picture: AP)
A woman places teddy bears outside the memorial growing for Wadea al-Fayoume (Picture: AP)
Czuba was charged with first-degree murder, attempted first-degree murder, two counts of hate crime and aggravated battery with a deadly weapon at a hearing at Will County Court on Monday.
Czuba was assigned a public defender and did not enter a plea.
Al-Fayoume was laid to rest at a ceremony at the Mosque Foundation in Bridgefield, Illinois. A portion of the Chicago suburb is known as Little Palestine due to the large number of Palestinian-American and Jordanian-American families and businesses there.
The murder has shocked America, with even the highest levels of the federal government condemning the attack.
Joseph Czuba, 71, was charged with murder, attemepted murder, and hate crimes for the Islamophobic attack (Picture: Illinois Sheriff’s Office / Handout/Anadolu via Getty Images)
‘The child’s Palestinian Muslim family came to America seeking what we all seek—a refuge to live, learn, and pray in peace,’ President Joe Biden said in a statement.
‘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,’ Biden said.
The president asked Americans to ‘unequivocally’ reject Islamophobia and other forms of bigotry.
Meanwhile, the Justice Department confirmed on Monday that they would open a federal hate crime investigation into the fatal stabbing, alongside the FBI’s Chicago field office and the department’s Civil Rights Division.
Illinois State Rep Abdelnasser Rashid embraces Oday Al-Fayoume, father of Wadea Al-Fayoume (Picture: AP)
Attorney General Merrick Garland said he was ‘heartbroken’ by the killing.
‘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 attorney general said. ‘The Department of Justice is focused on protecting the safety and the civil rights of every person in this country.’
He continued: ‘We will use every legal authority at our disposal to bring to justice those who perpetrate illegal acts of hate. No one in the United States of America should have to live in fear of violence because of how they worship or where they or their family come from.’
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Wadea al-Fayoume, 6, was stabbed 26 times by his landlord in an Islamophobic attack.