(WTTW News)

(CNN) — A Chicago-area landlord has been arrested and charged with murder and hate crimes after authorities said he stabbed and killed a 6-year-old boy and seriously wounded his mother, allegedly because the tenants are Muslim.

According to the Will County Sheriff’s Office, Joseph M. Czuba, 71, has been charged with first-degree murder, attempted first-degree murder, two counts of a hate crime and aggravated battery with a deadly weapon.

Authorities say they were called to the residence in unincorporated Plainfield Township just before noon on Saturday after a woman called 911 saying her landlord had attacked her.

When deputies arrived, they found Czuba sitting outside and the victims in a bedroom. The boy had been stabbed 26 times, and his mother had been stabbed over a dozen times, the sheriff’s office said.

The victims were taken to the hospital, but the boy later died from his injuries, authorities said. His mother is recovering in a local hospital and expected to survive.

The sheriff’s office said Czuba did not make a statement to detectives after being brought to the Will County Sheriff’s Office Public Safety Complex, but investigators were able to determine the victims were “targeted by the suspect due to them being Muslim and the on-going Middle Eastern conflict involving Hamas and the Israelis.”

The Chicago office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) issued a news release identifying the victims as Hanaan Shahin, 32, and her son, Wadea Al-Fayoume.

CAIR said they had lived on the ground floor of the house for two years without trouble with Czuba, but in texts to the boy’s father from the hospital after the attack, Shahin said he “knocked on their door, and when she opened, he tried to choke her and proceeded to attack her with a knife, yelling, ‘You Muslims must die!’” according to the CAIR statement.

The Justice Department on Sunday announced it has opened a federal hate crimes investigation into the fatal stabbing, though it stressed it was limited in what it can say due to the ongoing criminal investigation.

“I am heartbroken by the abhorrent killing of Wadea Al-Fayoume, a six year old child who died after being stabbed 26 times with a military-style knife,” U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement. “On behalf of the entire Justice Department, I want to express my deepest condolences to his family and his community as they grieve his loss.”

Garland said the incident “cannot help but further raise the fears of Muslim, Arab, and Palestinian communities in our country with regard to hate-fueled violence,” adding that his department will use “every legal authority at our disposal to bring to justice those who perpetrate illegal acts of hate.”

“No one in the United States of America,” he said, “should have to live in fear of violence because of how they worship or where they or their family come from.”

Mayor Brandon Johnson on Monday said he was “devastated” by the killing, which he called a “despicable hate crime” and a “shameful reminder of the destructive role Islamophobia plays in our society.”

“We grieve alongside his family and the Muslim, Arab and Palestinian communities in our state as we reckon with this unthinkable loss,” he said in a statement. “We also pray for his mother's recovery. We will never forget Wadea who was taken from us much too soon. May God rest his soul in eternal peace and may peace reign here on Earth.”

On Saturday, Israel’s military said its forces are readying for the next stages of the war in response to the unprecedented Oct. 7 attacks by the Islamist militant group Hamas, which controls Gaza. At least 1,400 people were killed during Hamas’ rampage, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) told CNN on Sunday.

Nearly 1 million Gazans have been forced from their homes in the week since the Hamas attack and the ensuing Israeli retaliation, UNRWA, the UN agency that assists Palestinians, said Saturday.

Czuba was transported to the Will County Adult Detention Facility and is awaiting his initial court appearance, according to the sheriff’s office. It is unclear if he has an attorney.

Matt Masterson contributed to this report.