An Illinois man has been found guilty of murder after stabbing a six-year-old Palestinian-American boy to death in an attack prosecutors say was sparked by anti-Muslim hatred.
Wadee Alfayoumi died in hospital after he was stabbed 26 times with a military-style knife with a 7-inch (18cm) serrated blade on October 16, 2023.
The murder, carried out by 73-year-old Joseph Czuba, took place just days after the October 7 attack by Hamas militants on Israel and was one of the earliest and worst hate crime incidents in the US since the start of the Israel-Gaza war.
Wadee’s mother Hanan Shaheen was also severely wounded in the attack that occurred in Plainfield Township, about 40 miles southwest of Chicago.
Czuba was the landlord of Ms Shaheen and her son. He faces life in prison when he is sentenced in May.
During the trial this week, Shaheen testified that Czuba told her "you, as a Muslim, must die".
Michael Fitzgerald, prosecutor at Will County State's Attorney's Office, presented a 911 call's recording in the trial.
"The landlord is killing me and my baby," Shaheen is heard saying on the audio.
Czuba had earlier pleaded not guilty and did not testify during the trial that started on Tuesday.
Other U.S. incidents raising alarm over anti-Arab bias include the attempted drowning of a 3-year-old Palestinian American girl in Texas, the stabbing of a Palestinian American man in Texas, the beating of a Muslim man in New York, a violent mob attack on pro-Palestinian protesters in California and a Florida shooting of two Israeli visitors whom a suspect mistook to be Palestinians.
Incidents raising alarm over antisemitism include threats of violence against Jews at Cornell University that led to a conviction and sentencing, an unsuccessful plot to attack a New York Jewish center, and physical assaults against a Jewish man in Michigan, a rabbi in Maryland and two Jewish students in Chicago.
Rights advocates have noted rising Islamophobia and antisemitism in the U.S. since the October 2023 Hamas attack and U.S. ally Israel's subsequent military assault on Gaza.
