Six-year-old Palestinian-American boy killed in US, suspect charged with hate crime

Police in the Chicago suburb of Plainfield arrested a man on Saturday for killing a six-year-old Palestinian-American boy and wounding his mother, a violent act police attributed to islamophobia and “the ongoing Middle Eastern conflict involving Hamas and the Israelis.”

The killing is being investigated as a hate crime and brought home fears of violence against Palestinian and Muslim Americans in the wake of Hamas’ invasion of Israel and Israel’s subsequent war in Gaza. The act has drawn broad condemnation, including from President Joe Biden; Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, both of whom are Jewish; and multiple Jewish organizations.

“There is no humane world that can and should tolerate the murder of an innocent child because of his identity,” Mayorkas said in a statement. “The tragic events in the Middle East, begun by the brutal terrorist attacks by Hamas, have brought ideologies of hate to the fore across the world – notably antisemitism and Islamophobia.”