‘He's still alive inside me’: Father of Palestinian boy stabbed 26 times in US mourns loss of his son

By Ayse Betul Akcesme and Michael Hernandez

WASHINGTON (AA) - The father of a Palestinian American child who was brutally murdered in his Midwestern home continues to dream about his son as he prepares to mark one year after his death.

Oday Al-Fayoume, the father of Wadea Al-Fayoume, recalled how everything about his child, from the way he slept to the way he laughed, would remind him of himself as a child.

The memories help soothe the pain that no parent should have to endure.

"He's still alive in me," he told Anadolu at the family’s home outside of Chicago. "I talk to him, I hear him, I see him. I know he's in a good place right now."

Wadea, 6, was fatally stabbed 26 times at his Plainfield, Illinois, apartment with his mother, Hanaan Shahin, 32, on Oct. 14, 2023. Shahin was critically injured after being stabbed more than a dozen times.

Authorities arrested the family's landlord, Joseph Czuba, 71, and charged him with first-degree murder, attempted first-degree murder, aggravated battery and a pair of hate crimes charges.

Czuba has pleaded not guilty.

The trial was originally scheduled to take place in March 2025, but whether the case will proceed as planned remains uncertain. Czuba has been diagnosed with prostate cancer, and Al-Fayoume said he is refusing treatment while in jail and could die at "any time."

"If that happens before the court date, we're gonna close the case," he said.

Al-Fayoume filed a separate wrongful death lawsuit against Czuba, his wife, Mary Czuba, and their property management company, Discerning Property Management.

He still wrestles with whom he holds responsible for Wadea's death, but does not believe that Czuba is ultimately to blame. Al-Fayoume takes turns between faulting the media, Israel and US President Joe Biden.

He repeatedly referred to remarks Biden delivered shortly after the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel in which the president falsely claimed he had seen photographic evidence that children were beheaded during the cross-border raid.

“I never really thought that I would see and have confirmed pictures of terrorists beheading children,” the president said from the White House on Oct. 11, 2023.

The White House quickly walked back the comments, stipulating neither the president nor his officials had seen the purported photos, and maintained that Biden was referring to public comments made by Israeli officials.

But Wadea's family pointed to those remarks as a possible motivating factor in Wadea's murder and the violent assault on his mother, which occurred three days after Biden’s comments made headlines.

"He said, 'I see by my own eyes, the Palestinian guys, they killed the children of Israel. They cut their head,'" said Al-Fayoum.

"And that guy, he was like, super scared, or, I don't know what's going on with him. And he got to my ex, and he started to talk to her about that, and she told him, 'Let us pray for them, for peace, for everything.' But he was not stable. He was scared too much," he added, referring to Czuba.​​​​​​​