A Palestinian Muslim mother and her six-year-old son were stabbed to death in their home near Chicago. The child died and the attacker was charged, police said on Sunday. It believes the victims were targeted because of the war between Hamas and Israel. A “terrible act of hate” that Joe Biden denounced.
Published on: October 16, 2023 – 02:16 am
3 mins
A 71-year-old man was charged with murder and hate crimes on Sunday, October 15, after stabbing a Muslim woman and her six-year-old son to death in Plainfield, west of Chicago in the northeastern United States. According to police, the attack is related to the war between Israel and Hamas.
The child, who suffered 26 stab wounds on Saturday, died in hospital. His 32-year-old mother is expected to survive, according to a statement from the Will County Sheriff’s Office in Northeast Illinois, which called the attack “heinous.”
“Investigators were able to determine that the two victims of this brutal attack were targeted by the suspect because they are Muslims and because of ongoing conflict between Hamas and the Israelis in the Middle East,” the statement said.
In a separate statement, US President Joe Biden confirmed that the woman was the boy’s mother and said her “Palestinian Muslim family came to America seeking what we all seek: a refuge to live in peace to live, learn and pray”.
“This terrible act of hate has no place in America and contradicts our core values: freedom to pray without fear, freedom to believe and freedom to be,” Joe Biden added.
Attacked with knives
According to the sheriff’s office, the mother managed to call 911 while fighting off her attacker, Joseph Czuba, 71.
During the autopsy, a serrated military knife with a 15 cm long blade was removed from the child’s stomach.
When police arrived, they found Joseph Czuba sitting near the entrance to the apartment where the attack occurred, his forehead marked by a laceration. He was taken to hospital for treatment before being charged with murder, attempted murder and two counts of hate crime.
“Officers located the two victims inside the apartment, in a bedroom. Both victims had multiple stab wounds to their chest, torso and upper extremities,” the sheriff’s statement said.
The head of the Chicago office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), Ahmed Rehab, told reporters that the attacker knocked on the victim’s door and initially tried to choke the woman, telling her: “You Muslims must die.” quotes text messages that the woman sent from the hospital bed to the father of the murdered boy. This attack is “our worst nightmare,” CAIR emphasized in a press release.
Read alsoIsrael-Hamas war: The United States is “trapped” by the promise of a strong response.
The war between Israel and Hamas, which has claimed thousands of lives on both sides, was sparked after a bloody and unprecedented attack by Hamas on October 7 on Israeli territory in the Gaza Strip, which it controls. the Palestinian Islamist movement.
With AFP