The mother of the Palestinian American 6-year-old stabbed to death in an apparent hate crime following the onset of the Israel-Hamas war earlier this month made a desperate plea for peace in her first public comments.
Hanaan Shahin, 32, remembered her boy as an angel and begged for world peace on Wednesday while speaking for the first time since little Wadea Al-Fayoume was killed on Oct. 14.
“I need justice,” Shahin told ABC News. “How can you live without justice? And how you will be in peace without justice?”
The grieving mother, who was also stabbed over a dozen times in the horrifying attack carried out by landlord Joseph Czuba, retained civil rights attorney Ben Crump.
“Pray for peace,” Shahin said. “We need many, many prayers for peace. You know, and then God will give us peace. We need to pray for peace.”
Czuba, 71 — who allegedly shouted, “You Muslims must die!” at Shanin and her son before stabbing the boy 26 times with a 12-inch military-style knife — carried out the attack because the family was Muslim, authorities in Will County said.
“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 Sheriff’s Office said in a statement.
The Department of Justice has also opened a federal investigation into Al-Fayoume’s death.
The mother and son had lived on the ground floor of Czuba’s home for about two years, according to the Council on American-Islamic Relations’ Chicago chapter, which condemned the violence.
CAIR-Chicago described the stabbings as the Muslim community’s “worst nightmare,” calling it part of a disturbing spike in hate crimes targeting them after Hamas’ attack on Israel and the Jewish state’s subsequent declaration of war.
The group said the landlord “had been angry with what he was seeing in the news” and launched his attack on the mother and son, both of whom he previously had a “good relationship” with, according to the boy’s father.
Czuba was taken into custody at the scene and transported to a hospital to treat the cut on his forehead, police said.
He was charged with first-degree murder, attempted first-degree murder, two counts of hate crimes and aggravated battery with a deadly weapon.
Czuba is currently being held at Will County’s Adult Detention facility.