Thousands of people packed a Plainfield community center Tuesday night to honor the life of Wadea al-Fayoume, a Palestinian American 6-year-old who was stabbed to death Saturday in an alleged hate crime.
People from across the Chicago area attended the vigil to support Wadea’s family as well as Palestinians and Muslims in Plainfield and beyond as the conflict between Israel and the terrorist group Hamas intensifies.
Many participants and speakers at the event condemned inflammatory language about Palestinians and Muslims amplified in some media reports on the conflict between Israel and Hamas.
“Children should not be paying the price from people telling these lies,” said a man who identified himself as Wadea’s grandfather.
Will County prosecutors said in court Monday that the suspect in Wadea’s death, landlord Joseph Czuba, had grown “heavily interested” in the conflict between Israel and Hamas through conservative talk radio. Wadea’s grandfather said that Czuba, 71, had previously had a positive relationship with the boy and his mother.
Czuba was ordered detained Monday on charges, including first-degree murder, attempted murder and hate crime.
Federal authorities including the FBI and the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice are investigating the attack, which also left Wadea’s mother, Hanaan Shahin, seriously injured. Hundreds attended the boy’s funeral Monday as religious and political leaders throughout Illinois and the U.S. condemned the attack.
On Tuesday night, police estimated that about 1,000 people filled the gym at the Prairie Activity and Recreation Center while at least another 1,000 people formed a line that snaked around the parking lot.
Kareem Hamidof, 16, of Elk Grove Village, was one of the people in line. He said he saw Wadea’s death as a consequence “of the hateful rhetoric and the hateful environment that we create and that’s been circulating around on the internet and social media and the news.”
Hamidof stood with his mother and a cousin, Yasmina Blackburn. Blackburn, 55, said that government bodies and media outlets owe the Muslim community an apology for Islamaphobic and anti-Palestinian sentiments that prosecutors said motivated Czuba.
“This man murdered this boy because the media got in his head so badly that it literally brainwashed him,” she said.
Vigil organizers kept Tuesday’s focus on Wadea and his family, interspersing a moment of silence and a prayer with remarks from community leaders, activists and relatives.
Some frustration with politicians’ response to the clash between Israel and Hamas became audible when Dilawar Syed, deputy administrator of the U.S. Small Business Administration, spoke as a representative of President Joe Biden’s administration. Vigil organizers said he is the highest-ranking Muslim official in the Biden administration.
Biden has a long track record of showing public support for Israel while expressing concerns privately to the Israelis about their behavior. Syed met a mixed reception from the crowd as he made his remarks.
“I’m here on behalf of the president to mourn Wadea’s life, to mourn with you,” Syed said.
“There is blood on your president’s hands,” someone shouted from the audience as Syed kept speaking.
“There is no place for hate in America,” he said as others shouted their frustrations from the audience. Vigil organizers asked attendees for order, acknowledging that emotions were running high.
“You’re taking away from this moment and this child with your outbursts,” an organizer said.
“Be respectful,” someone else called. “We are Plainfield strong.”
Syed promised that the Biden administration would work “until every American has the freedom to live their life without fear.”
Cynthia Glass, whose son was close friends with Wadea, spoke later in the program. She said she wanted to see “something good come out of this.”
“I don’t know how to explain this to my son, and I shouldn’t have to,” Glass said. “Everybody can have their opinions, but this is about a child. This is about two little boys who will never get to play together again.”
In remarks closing the vigil, DuPage Township Trustee Reem Townsend asked people to continue contributing to a fundraising page created to cover medical and funeral costs for Wadea’s family. As of Wednesday morning, contributions totaled more than $500,000.
Townsend also called on “our media and elected officials to be more unbiased than they have been in the past (because) hate-filled rhetoric leads to hate-filled violence.”
The gym erupted into applause.
As of Tuesday evening, Israeli strikes on Gaza have killed at least 2,700 people and wounded more than 9,700, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. Nearly two-thirds of those killed were children, a ministry official said. The destruction comes on the heels of an Oct. 7 attack by Hamas in southern Israel that killed more than 1,400 people, mostly civilians, and took some 200 captive into Gaza.
Associated Press contributed.