His Name is Wadea Al-Fayoum.

From our series on Israel and Palestine since the bloodshed began on Oct 7th, 2023.

I know your heart is already processing grief. I know the images of hurting children have been relentless. This is a face I need you to see, a name I need you to know.

His name is Wadea. He is six-years-old. He is a Palestinian American child in Plainfield Township in Illinois. On Saturday, his landlord came to his apartment; his mother opened the door. The man attempted to choke her, then stabbed her, yelling, “You Muslims must die!” She ran to the bathroom to call 911. When she emerged, she found her son stabbed twenty-six times.

Wadea Al-Fayoum is dead. His mother Hanaan Shahin is in critical condition. Law enforcement confirmed that the man targeted them for being Muslim and for what’s happening in Gaza, and charged him with hate crimes.

I have chronicled hate violence in the U.S. for 22 years. The first person murdered in a hate crime after 9/11 was a turbaned Sikh man I called uncle. Since then, Sikh Americans have been frontline targets for anti-Muslim hate, especially after terrorist attacks and during every election season. Today our people are five times more likely to be targets of hate than before 9/11. And that was before Gaza. Now, as anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian sentiment fills our screens — we are entering a new era of threat.

As a Sikh mother, I stand with my Muslim family. A threat on them is a threat on us. Their suffering is our suffering. Their courage an extension of our own as we face the threat of hate together.

I look at Wadea and cannot help but see my own son. I want to believe that my children are at least safe in our home. Wadea was killed in his home.

So I say to you, whoever you are —

Wadea was our child. Our six-year-old boy. Ours to love and protect. We could not save him. Who are the children in your care? You have a sphere of influence only you have, a role only you can play. Your school, home, neighborhood. In the face of antisemitism and anti-Muslim violence, we need you.

We will only survive this era if people who stand in love are bolder than those who cling to hate. What would love have you do?

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