Anti-Muslim incidents sharply surge in US in H1 2024

Discrimination and attacks against Muslims and Palestinians in the US rose by about 70 percent in the first half of 2024, driven by heightened Islamophobia due to Israel's war in Gaza, according to the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).

Human rights advocates have mentioned a global rise in Islamophobia, anti-Palestinian bias and antisemitism since the eruption in October of the Israel-Gaza war which has killed tens of thousands and caused a humanitarian crisis, News.Az reports citing Reuters.

In the first six months of 2024, CAIR said it received 4,951 complaints of anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian incidents, a rise of nearly 70 percent compared with the same period in 2023.

Most of the complaints were in the categories of immigration and asylum, employment discrimination, education discrimination and hate crimes, CAIR said.

In 2023, CAIR documented 8,061 such complaints in the whole year, including about 3,600 in the last three months after the war broke out.

Alarming US incidents in the last nine months include the fatal October stabbing of a 6-year-old Palestinian-American child in Illinois, the February stabbing of a Palestinian-American man in Texas, the shooting of three students of Palestinian descent in Vermont in November and the attempted drowning of a 3-year-old Palestinian-American girl in May.

There have been numerous protests in the US, Israel’s key ally, against the war in Gaza since October. The CAIR report noted the crackdown by police and university authorities on pro-Palestinian protests and encampments on campuses.

News.Az