Horror of war takes a deadly toll at home
The images are horrific, but, for many, they are just that: images from a war thousands of miles away. Not anymore. The war came to our shores on Saturday; an ugly reminder that these conflicts, no matter how distant they may seem, touch us all.
When evil arises, it strikes at the heart of all humanity.
A 6-year-old Palestinian American was killed on Saturday. His family’s 71-year-old landlord has been charged with murder and a hate crime, law enforcement officials said.
The boy lived in Plainfield, Ill., not Israel or Gaza. But mark him as another casualty of the Israel-hamas war, for he was a victim of the conflict just as the many men, women and children who have perished since the horrific attack in Israel almost two weeks ago.
“You Muslims must die!” his attacker yelled, according to text messages from the mother to the father.
Joseph Czuba was charged with killing the boy, Wadea Al-fayoume, and injuring his mother, Hanaan Shahin, 32. Officials said he stabbed the boy 26 times, the mother more than 12 times.
“Detectives were able to determine that both victims in this brutal attack were targeted by the suspect due to them being Muslim and the ongoing Middle Eastern conflict involving Hamas and the Israelis,” the Will County Sheriffs Office said in a news release.
Jewish and Palestinian groups have received terroristic threats, from California to New York, in the wake of the war. They fear more such attacks.
The horror and brutality continued in the Middle East, where an explosion killed hundreds of people on Monday at a hospital in Gaza. U.S. and Israeli intelligence have said the explosion was caused by an errant rocket fired by Palestinian fighters.
“Based on what I’ve seen, it appears as though it was done by the other team, not you,” President Joe Biden said, appearing with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Tel Aviv.
Biden also announced $100 million in U.S. aid to assist civilians in the West Bank and Gaza, and it appears as though the Israel government will allow the flow of food, water and medicine into Gaza from Egypt. And he cautioned against hate.
“Justice must be done,” he said. “But I caution this: While you feel that rage, don’t be consumed by it. After 9/11 we were enraged in the United States. While we sought justice and got justice, we also made mistakes.”
The conflict has killed thousands, Israelis and Palestinians, and while voicing full-fledged support for Israel, the president expressed his anguish and horror over the devastation. They were the same emotions that guided his comments about the killing of Wadea Alfayoume in Illinois.
“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,” he said in a statement.
The boy was killed before he had a chance to live. Children are all potential at that age, dreams unfulfilled, hopes unrealized. That is both the grandeur and tragedy of youth — grand because the future is so tantalizing, tragic because that future is never guaranteed.
He is gone. His departure leaves a hole in his family, his friends. All that remains are memories, fragments of a once-vital life.
“We are not animals, we are humans,” Yousef Hannon, the uncle of the child, said at his funeral on Monday. “We want people to see us as humans.”
A group of rabbis from the Chicago area attended Wadea Al-fayoume’s funeral — and they were well received by the Muslim community, despite differences about the war.
“I told them we would treat them with respect. They are guests, and we can hash out our political differences another day,” said Ahmed Rehab, executive director of the Chicago chapter of the Council on American-islamic Relations. “We stand for humanity.”
Hate is the very thing that killed the boy. This is no time to counter evil with evil.
The family needs love from friends and loved ones. Just as importantly, it needs love from its community, its nation. The boy was one of us, no matter his religion or ethnicity. Let us not lose sight of our shared humanity.
Killing of 6-year-old Muslim boy shows that hate knows no borders