Illinois Playground Monument Honors Slain Palestinian Boy

Community members in Plainfield, Illinois, unveiled a monument late last month honoring six-year-old Wadee Alfayoumi, who was murdered by his family’s landlord in an anti-Muslim, anti-Palestinian hate crime in 2023. Depicting Alfayoumi’s silhouette with his right hand raised to complete a red heart shape, the public artwork was unveiled on Saturday, June 28 at a local playground renamed in his honor.

Based on a photograph taken of him shortly before his death, the piece was designed by visual artist Savera Iftekhar and crafted by Syed “Saif” Rahman, founder of the Islamic interior decoration brand Modern Wall Art. Its marble base was created by Fahim Rauf of the design company Dream Hauz. The project, which cost $10,000, was paid for by funds raised by the Cub Scouts Pack 99 of the Midwest Islamic Scouting Council.

“The site was chosen because it was a park Wadee loved and often visited,” Mohammed Faheem, president of the local nonprofit American Muslims Assisting Neighbors, told Hyperallergic. Faheem had proposed dedicating the playground, formerly known as the Van Horn Woods East, to Alfayoumi earlier this year.

Alfayoumi was killed one week after the Israeli military began its ongoing barrage of US-backed assaults on Palestine, which has reportedly killed upwards of 57,012 people in Gaza since October 2023. On October 14 of that year, 73-year-old Joseph Czuba brutally attacked the boy and his mother Hanan Shaheen in his family home, fatally stabbing him 26 times and his mother more than a dozen. While Shaheen survived the attack, Alfayoumi was killed.

In early May, a Will County judge sentenced Czuba to 53 years in prison after a jury convicted him on multiple murder charges, in addition to attempted murder, hate crime, and aggravated battery counts. It follows the United States Senate’s passage of the Wadee Resolution last year, which marked the first time that Congress recognized Palestinian Americans in a resolution.

At the monument’s presentation last month, community members denounced Islamophobia, echoing an inscription on its base that reads “Hate has no home in Plainfield.”

“To Wadee, I hope that you hear this, and I hope that you are at peace,” said Soha Khatib, an activist with the Palestinian Youth Movement, at the ceremony. “You are still so, so loved, and I hope you’re running around in fields just like this one in heaven.”