More than 1,000 mourners packed into a community centre in Plainfield, Illinois, for a vigil remembering Wadea Al-Fayoume, a 6-year-old Palestinian American boy who police said was stabbed to death by his landlord in an apparent hate crime spurred by the war in Israel and Gaza.
The Prairie Activity and Recreation Centre was filled to its 1,400-person capacity by community members on Tuesday night, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.
Wadea's family sat next to a photograph of the child smiling and met members of the community seeking to express their sympathy.
The vigil was organised by the American Muslims Assisting Neighbors nonprofit organisation.
“Tonight is to celebrate the life of this child and make sure that this does not happen again,” Mohammed Faheem, the group's president, told the crowd. “This is to express our solidarity as one community. Plainfield is a very welcoming community, and we want to make sure that people understand that.”
The venue was swept by security guards before the vigil, an unfortunate but necessary precaution to prevent further violence against Muslim Americans. Security officials scanned the venue's rooftops and patrolled the perimeter with trained dogs.
Wadea was killed on Saturday morning when his family's landlord, Joseph Czuba, 71, allegedly stabbed him and his mother multiple times with a knife at their home.
Prosecutors believe the alleged crime was driven by hate stoked by the conflict in Israel and Gaza. They said in court filing that he had been listening to conservative talk radio shows discussing the conflict prior to the attack.
The stabbing echoes the uptick in violence and harassment aimed at Muslim Americans following the 9/11 terror attacks.
Wadea was stabbed 26 times and died at the hospital, according to authorities. His 32-year-old mother, Hanan Shaheen, could not attend her son's funeral because she was still recovering in the hospital.
Attendees at the vigil carried flowers and signs, including one that insisted that "this is what happens when you spread hate and dehumanise Palestinians."
At the same time that mourners grieved the loss of Wadea, some US lawmakers were calling for the total destruction of Gaza, and waiving off civilian casualties by Israel as the fault of Hamas.
Florida Governor and GOP presidential primary candidate Ron DeSantis said he would not allow any Palestinian refugees into the US, claiming while they’re not all supporters of Hamas, they were "all antisemitic."
Republican US Senator Tom Cotton called for Israel to "bounce rubble" in Gaza, essentially calling for the enclave's complete and utter destruction.
More than 50 per cent of the population in Gaza is under the age of 18, meaning that more than half of those experiencing Israel's retaliation to Hamas's 7 October attack — which killed approximately 2,000 Israelis — were too young to vote or not even born when the militant group was elected to lead Gaza in 2006.
More than 3,700 Palestinians have been killed since 7 October, according to Gaza's health ministry.
Dilwar Syed, the deputy administrator of the US Small Business Administration, offered condolences from the White House, but his words were given a mixed reception. Some attendees left as he began to speak. One called out that Joe Biden "has blood on his hands," likely a reference to the US's historic and continued support of Israel, even as it continues to pummel Gaza and displace more than a million people living in what has been referred to as the "world's largest open air prison."
