• Wadea Al-Fayoume was stabbed 26 times in the heinous attack
• Children and senior citizens account for almost 60 percent of casualties in the attacks on Gaza. 

Joining hundreds of Palestinian kids brutally murdered in Israeli war on Gaza, a Palestinian-American 6-year-old boy has been stabbed to death and his mother seriously wounded after being attacked by a 71-year-old landlord.

The mother, Hanaan Shahin, and her son Wadea Al-Fayoume had lived on the ground floor of the house for two years with no previous notable issues with the landlord, reported as 71-year-old Joseph Czuba. 

📚 Read Also: Gaza Tragedy: A Step Closer to the Apocalypse

According to written text messages reportedly sent to the father of the boy by the mother from the hospital and shared with the Chicago office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-Chicago), the landlord 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!”.

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 boy, who was stabbed 26 times with a serrated knife with a seven-inch blade, was pronounced dead at a hospital, according to the Will County Sheriff’s Office in Joliet, Ill.

“Our hearts are heavy, and our prayers are with the darling boy and his mother,” said Ahmed Rehab, CAIR-Chicago Executive Director in a statement. 

“As we await the official investigation of the local authorities, what we can confirm at the moment is that we have a murdered child in his own home, a six-year who had just celebrated his birthday a couple of weeks ago, and a mother lying in the hospital in serious condition, both stabbed over a dozen times.”

Hate Crime

Rehab said that CAIR had testimony from the surviving mother as to how the incident unfolded.

“We have full confidence in the authorities to investigate this heinous incident as a hate crime and to do so swiftly,” he said in the statement.

The man accused in the attack, Joseph M. Czuba, has been charged with first-degree murder, attempted first-degree murder, two counts of a hate crime and aggravated battery with a deadly weapon in what the Sheriff’s Office described as a “senseless and cowardly act of violence.”

More than 2,450 Palestinian civilians have been killed by Israel’s indiscriminate bombing on Gaza, Palestinian authorities say, with an estimated 1,000 missing under rubble.

Children and senior citizens accounted for almost 60 percent of casualties.