CAIR-Chicago’s William Asfour Reflects on Oct. 7 attacks anniversary with The Chicago Tribune

William Asfour, pictured on Sept. 22, 2025, lived for several years in Gaza as a child and has lost many family members to the war and ensuing devastation. (E. Jason Wambsgans/Chicago Tribune)

Destruction, devastation and death

William Asfour spent the first few years of his life in Gaza – going to the beach, playing with cousins and sharing meals with his large extended family.

In 2001, when he was 4, he and his immediate family moved to the United States.

“I never knew that would be my last time in Gaza,” said Asfour, who lives in the southwest suburbs. “I’m separated from my family. A lot of them have been killed. Many of them are suffering tremendously because of the Israeli siege and the genocide in Gaza.” (Israel has rejected accusations of genocide, saying its war against Hamas has been in self-defense.)

Asfour recounted the story of his cousin Mohammed Asfour, who went to Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis to check on an injured relative in November 2023. When the cousin returned home, Asfour said, he found his house reduced to rubble from Israeli airstrikes and almost his entire family dead.

“He saw his father’s head without the body,” Asfour said. “He saw his wife and children in pieces, including a 3-month baby girl.”

The cousin and his only surviving child, a 9-year-old daughter named Haneen, later fled to Egypt.

Asfour, who says he has had more than 200 relatives killed since the war began, visited them there last year. He recalled the young girl told him, ‘I wish I’d died with my mother and siblings.’”

“Imagine a 9-year-old girl telling you that,” Asfour said.

The scale and scope of suffering is hard to conceive, said Dr. John Kahler, co-founder of the Rolling Meadows-based nonprofit MedGlobal, who has gone on two medical missions to Gaza since the war began.

“Think about not having taken a shower since November 2023. Think about not having any good change of clothes that have been washed since 2023,” he said. “Smell it. Hear it. Feel it. Think about never having a good night sleep. This is the level of stress this community is under.”

A MedGlobal report in August found nearly 17% of children under 5 in Gaza were experiencing acute malnutrition. While Israel’s government has denied that there’s a starvation crisis in Gaza, Trump has acknowledged “real starvation” there.

Kahler said it’s hard for him to see a positive outcome given the devastation.

“Gaza itself has been destroyed,” he said. “If there’s an attempt to rebuild that by Palestinians for Palestinians, good. But it’s a 20-year project.”

Tax dollars and elections

Asfour said he feels “survivor’s guilt” at living in safety here while the United States has approved billions of dollars in military assistance for Israel over nearly the past two years.

“It feels like my tax dollars are going to kill my people and my family,” he said.

He’d contemplated moving abroad during the trip when he visited his cousin. While overseas, he watched reports of the August Democratic National Convention in Chicago where no pro-Palestinian voice was given a platform, angering him and many other Muslim and Arab Americans.

This played a pivotal role in the 2024 presidential election, with many of these voters casting a ballot for Trump, backing an independent candidate or abstaining.

Asfour said he voted for Green Party candidate Jill Stein.

“It was a protest vote,” he said. “That was the only choice I could have made.”

He decided to come back to the United States “to be an advocate, to spread awareness and to combat Islamophobia,” which has skyrocketed amid the war.

The climate hit a nadir locally in mid-October 2023 when a Palestinian American boy, 6-year-old Wadee Alfayoumi, was fatally stabbed in his Plainfield Township home. Authorities charged the attack as a hate crime.

In April, Asfour began working for the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Chicago. The national organization’s 2025 Civil Rights Report cited more than 8,600 complaints of Islamophobia, anti-Arab or anti-Palestinian incidents in 2024, the highest number since the report began in 1996.

Asfour often patrons Seedo’s Levantine Bakery in downtown Chicago for food with roots in his ancestral homeland.

William Asfour, who lived for several years in Gaza as a child, feels a connection to his homeland when at Seedo's Levantine Bakery in Chicago, where he is shown on Sept. 22, 2025. (E. Jason Wambsgans/Chicago Tribune)

The bakery’s owner, Palestinian American Mutaz Abdullah of Orland Park, recalled heated debate last year in his southwest suburb over a resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza.

The controversy culminated with then-Mayor Keith Pekau suggesting Arab Americans who support the measure could “go to another country” if they disagree with U.S. policy. Pekau lost his bid for a third term in April to challenger Jim Dodge.

Orland Park passed a ceasefire resolution in September.

“The Palestinian community and Muslim community came together,” Abdullah said. “I believe change is on the horizon.”

As for Trump’s peace plan, Asfour said an “immediate ceasefire is crucial” but added that “Israel needs to end its military occupation.” Both Asfour and Abdullah called for Palestinian statehood and self-governance.

Late last month, multiple Western nations announced or confirmed recognition of Palestinian statehood, in defiance of Israel and the United States.

“This affects my people,” Abdullah said. “Give us our own state and let us start to govern ourselves.”