ALJAZEERA: Palestinian-American boy stabbed to death in Gaza war-related killing in US

Written By: AL JAZEERA AND NEWS AGENCIES

“Our hearts are heavy, and our prayers are with the darling boy and his mother,” Ahmed Rehab, the executive director of the Council of American Islamic Relations (CAIR) for the Chicago chapter, said in a statement on their website. “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-old 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,” said the CAIR statement.

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 family had lived on the ground floor of the house for two years, according to the organisation. The suspect was their landlord, reports said.

Citing text messages from the mother to the boy’s father, the suspect reportedly yelled, “You Muslims must die!” ahead of the stabbing, according to CAIR-Chicago, which called the crime “our worst nightmare” and part of a disturbing spike in hate calls and emails since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war.