A teacher at a middle school in the United States threatened to behead a 13-year-old Muslim student after she expressed discomfort with the Israeli flag he brought to the classroom.

The American network "CNN" reported on Thursday that the police recently arrested Benjamin Rice (51 years old), a seventh-grade teacher at a middle school in the state of Georgia (southeastern United States), for threatening to behead a Muslim student after she expressed discomfort with the Israeli flag in the classroom.

The incident report issued by the authorities explained that the threat occurred on December 7 of this month, and the teacher also directed insults at 3 students.

Local media reported that the teacher was released on bail of $7,500.

Escalation of Targeting Muslims

With the ongoing Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip since the Al-Aqsa Flood operation launched by the Palestinian resistance on October 7, last month, cases of targeting Muslims have escalated in the United States.

In mid-October, a man in the state of Illinois stabbed a Muslim child 26 times, killing him, while seriously injuring his mother, repeating hostile phrases against Muslims and Palestinians.

The police accused the man (71 years old) of committing a hate crime against the child, Wadie Al-Fayoumi (6 years old), and his mother (32 years old), saying that the victims were targeted because of their Islamic faith, in the context of the war waged by Israel on the Palestinians.

On November 25 last month, 3 students of Palestinian origin were attacked in a shooting in the state of Vermont in the United States.

The victims' families issued a joint statement urging the authorities to investigate the shooting as a hate crime, which was also called for by the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) confirmed that it has recorded a significant increase in incidents driven by Islamophobia in the United States since the start of the Al-Aqsa Flood battle and the war on Gaza.

The council added that it received 774 complaints about incidents driven by Islamophobia and bias against Palestinians and Arabs within the United States during the period between October 7 and 24 only.

CAIR continued that this is the highest rate since 2015, noting that this number equals almost three times the average number of complaints compared to the same period in 2022.
 

The Council on American-Islamic Relations pointed to an 18-year-old Palestinian being assaulted in Brooklyn, alongside death threats received by a mosque, and the stabbing murder of Muslim child Wadie Al-Fayoumi in Illinois.

Meanwhile, the Anti-Defamation League said its preliminary data showed a 388% increase in anti-Semitic incidents in the United States between October 7 and 23 last month.