A U.S. landlord was charged with murder and hate crimes Sunday after allegedly stabbing a Muslim woman and 6-year-old boy dozens of times in an attack that police linked to the war between Israel and Hamas.
The child, who was stabbed 26 times, died at a hospital, but the 32-year-old woman, believed to be his mother, is expected to survive the “heinous” Saturday attack, according to a statement from the Will County sheriff’s office in Illinois.
Late Sunday, U.S. President Joe Biden said in a statement that he and his wife were shocked and sickened to learn of the murderous attack.
“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. As Americans, we must come together and reject Islamophobia and all forms of bigotry and hatred. I have said repeatedly that I will not be silent in the face of hate. We must be unequivocal. There is no place in America for hate against anyone.”
The sheriff’s office did not give further details or the victims’ nationality, but the Chicago office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) described the child as Palestinian-American.
“Detectives were able to determine that both victims in this brutal attack were targeted by the suspect due to them being Muslim and the on-going Middle Eastern conflict involving Hamas and the Israelis,” said the statement, which located the killing about 64 kilometers west of Chicago.
Authorities said the woman managed to call 911 as she fought off the landlord, named by the sheriff’s office as 71-year-old Joseph Czuba.
“Deputies located two victims inside the residence in a bedroom. Both victims had multiple stab wounds to their chest, torso, and upper extremities,” the sheriff’s statement said.
A serrated military-style knife with a seven-inch blade was pulled from the boy’s abdomen during the autopsy, the statement said.
When police arrived, they found Czuba sitting on the ground near the driveway of the residence with a laceration on his forehead. He was taken to the hospital for treatment before being charged with murder, attempted murder, and two counts of hate crimes.
“He knocked on the door and attempted to choke her, and said, ‘you Muslims’ must die,” Ahmed Rehab, head of CAIR’s Chicago office, told reporters, citing text messages sent by the woman to the murdered boy’s father from her hospital bed.
The attack was “our worst nightmare,” CAIR said in a statement.
Israel declared war on Hamas Oct. 8, a day after waves of the militant group’s fighters broke through the heavily fortified border and shot, stabbed and burned to death more than 1,400 people, most of them civilians.
The subsequent relentless bombing by Israel has flattened neighborhoods and left at least 2,670 people dead in the Gaza Strip, the majority ordinary Palestinians.
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