Islamic organizations condemned the stabbing of a 6-year-old boy at the hands of his landlord over the weekend. Wadea Al-Fayoume, sustained 26 stab wounds in an apparent hate crime over the child’s Palestinian American heritage.

The boy’s mother, 32-year-old Hanaan Shahin, suffered about a dozen stab wounds in the attack. The landlord, Joseph M. Czuba, has been charged with first degree murder, two counts of hate crimes and aggravated battery with a deadly weapon.

Officials said the 71-year-old targeted his Muslim tenants because of the ongoing conflict between Hamas and Israel.

On Sunday, the Chicago branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) held a press conference to condemn the violent attack. The group described the incident as “our worst nightmare” in a press release.

CAIR laid out more details of the horrific attack after reviewing texts between the boy’s father and mother, including that Czuba first tried to choke Shahin before attacking her with the knife. After entering the home, he yelled “you Muslims must die!”

Shahin then ran to the bathroom to call 911. When she came out, she found that her son had been stabbed to death.

“It all happened in seconds,” she said in one of the text messages.

Prior to the attack, the mother and son never had any issues with their landlord in the two years they’d lived at the property.

At a press conference, Ahmed Rehab, executive director of CAIR, said that the group is fearful of what could happen to other Palestinian Americans as the war escalates.

“We’re not only completely heartbroken and devastated by what happened but we are afraid of what may happen more in the future,” he said, standing next to the boy’s father as he spoke. “We are afraid of this atmosphere.”

The Muslim American Society believe that such attacks are a result of anti-Muslim, anti-Palestinian rhetoric currently being promulgated across the country.

“The atmosphere of dehumanization…has consequences such as this, claiming the lives of children here on American soil as well as in Gaza,” the group said in a Facebook post.

The Islamic Center of North America (ICNA) said that the Muslim community in the U.S has become the target of hatred and violence over the past week.

“ICNA firmly states that this crime is not an isolated one,” the group said in a Facebook post. The group did not point to other similar crimes that have been carried out recently.

“We must unite to reform those in our society that allow hateful propaganda to inspire the murder of others as in this case,” the statement read. “We call on our lawmakers to stop spewing misleading information of what is going on in Gaza.

“We also call on them to condemn the hate that is spreading here in our country.”

The U.S. Department of Justice announced on Sunday that it would be launching a federal hate crime investigation into the crime. In a written statement, Attorney General Merrick B. Garland said the events left him “heartbroken.”

“This incident cannot help but further raise the fears of Muslim, Arab and Palestinian communities in our country with regard to hate-fueled violence,” the statement continued. “The Department of Justice is focused on protecting the safety and the civil rights of every person in this country.

President Biden also issued a statement condemning the attack, adding that “this horrific act of hate has no place in America.”

A vigil for the 6-year-old is taking place at 8 p.m. CT at the Prairie Activity & Recreation Center in Plainfield, Ill., the township where the family resides.