Anti-Muslim Attack Kills 6-Year-Old Boy

This past Sunday, a six-year-old boy was fatally stabbed by his family’s landlord in Chicago, Illinois. The boy, along with his mother, was allegedly targeted “due to them being Muslim and the ongoing Middle Eastern conflict involving Hamas and the Israelis,” according to officials from the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR)who inEthan Zhu ’26 vestigated the incident in a New York Times article. The 71-yearold suspect, Joseph M. Czuba, was the family’s Israeli landlord and was apparently overcome with anger as he watched news coverage of the ongoing Israeli-Hamas war. CAIR reported that the landlord knocked on the door to the family’s apartment and proceeded to assault the boy’s mother with a knife when she opened it. The Illinois State Police have been working with other agencies “in response to the elevated level of threats of violence and hate crimes related to the current conflict,” State Police director Brendan Kelly stated. He advises Illinois citizens to “‘remain on guard against both terrorism and hate crimes during this period of volatility.’”