Prosecutors treating attempted drowning of Palestinian-American child as hate crime

On 19 May, a Palestinian-American mother living in an apartment complex in Euless, Texas took her children for a swim in the building's pool. What followed was a violent altercation where a drunk woman allegedly made racist remarks and then proceeded to try and drown her three-year-old daughter.

Prosecutors are now seeking to treat the case as a hate crime, and rights groups say the incident is a symptom of the larger spike in anti-Palestinian racism and Islamophobia that has taken place in the United States since the beginning of Israel's war on Gaza in October.

“We are seeing a new level of bigotry here where a person deeply believes they get to decide, based on religion, spoken language and country of origin, whose kids deserve to stay alive and whose don’t," said Shaimaa Zayan, the operations manager for the Council on American Islamic Relations' Austin chapter.

The incident also drew comparisons to six-year-old Wadea al-Fayoume, who was killed in October when a man broke into his mother's apartment and stabbed him 26 times. Fayoume's mother was also injured in the incident.

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