IRVING PARK -- Muslim civic and elected leaders condemned Islamophobic rhetoric Monday night as they gathered at the Muslim Community Center in Irving Park to mark a year since a Palestinian-American child was stabbed to death in what authorities are investigating as a hate crime following the outbreak of the war between Israel and Hamas.
Wadee Alfayoumi, 6, and his mother were living in unincorporated Plainfield Township last fall when their landlord, Joseph Czuba, allegedly attacked them with a knife, killing the boy and leaving his mother, Hanaan Shahin, with serious injuries. Wadee's death drew national attention and highlighted the spike in Islamophobia that accompanied the war's outbreak, which has also brought a rise in antisemitism.
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Will County prosecutors said later that Czuba had become "heavily interested" in the Israel-Hamas war through conservative talk radio and had become convinced that his Palestinian and Muslim tenants would hurt him and asked them to move out before he allegedly stabbed the pair.
Muslim civil rights group CAIR Chicago's Executive Director Ahmed Rehab said Monday that Wadee's death said more about the suspect and the media he'd allegedly consumed than it did about Wadee or his family.
"(Wadee and his mother) were picked almost randomly to represent all of us," Rehab said. "In that sense, we were all stabbed. We were all wounded. We were all killed that day."
Rehab and other speakers pinned some of the responsibility for Wadee's death on "one-sided statements from politicians, one-sided coverage from the media."
"While our kin and our friends and our family were being slaughtered in Gaza, here at home, our community members were being vilified at the same moment," he said.
State Rep. Abdelnasser Rashid, D-Bridgeview, said the news conference announcing the boy's death was held a year ago in the same room as Monday's gathering. He remembered thinking that day of his own daughter, now 7, and the sadness, frustration and anger he felt.
Authorities charged Czuba with a slew of felonies days after Wadee's death. According to a wrongful death lawsuit filed in May against Czuba, his wife and his brother, the last words Wadee's mother heard her son say were "oh no."
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The attack drew thousands to grieve alongside the boy's family. It also prompted condemnation from elected officials at every level of government and was recognized by President Joe Biden in a national address shortly afterward.
Will County authorities deemed the stabbings a hate crime and federal authorities including the FBI and the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department launched an investigation into the attack soon after.
The Associated Press reports that more than 42,000 Palestinians have died since Israel declared war against Hamas following the militant group's Oct. 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel, which killed about 1,200 people and left about 250 people hostage in Gaza. About 100 of those hostages remain captive, though roughly a third are thought to be dead.
Though the total count of Palestinian casualties doesn't separate combatants and civilians, the Gaza Health Ministry says roughly half of the dead are women and children.
Sheikh Hasan Aly closed Monday's gathering with a prayer for those children and others "who continue to suffer in conflicts across the world" and a plea to reject hate and discrimination.
"We ask Almighty God to envelope all of the children in his peace," Aly said.
Wadee's father, Odai Alfayoumi, gave a short address in Arabic, which Rehab gave a rough translation of afterward.
Alfayoumi, dressed in a gray sweatsuit, thanked those in attendance and drew a parallel between Wadee and children in Gaza, who "are taken every single day by the same forces of hate and dehumanization," Rehab translated.
Alfayoumi added that he is expecting a new baby girl with his wife, Rehab said, and hoped his new daughter would share Wadee's sense of hope and joy.
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