A Texas woman, Elizabeth Wolf, 42, faces charges of attempted capital murder for allegedly trying to drown a three-year-old Palestinian-American girl in a racially motivated attack. Wolf is accused of targeting the child and her family because of their Middle Eastern descent and Muslim faith. The August 15 indictment includes a hate crime enhancement, citing that Wolf attacked the children because they were “Muslims or persons of Middle Eastern descent.”
The incident occurred at an apartment pool in Euless, Texas. According to police reports, Wolf, who was intoxicated at the time, approached the children’s mother and questioned her about her nationality. She made derogatory comments, including remarks about the mother not being American, followed by other racial slurs. The mother, accompanied by her six-year-old son and three-year-old daughter, tried to ignore the comments, but the situation quickly escalated.
Wolf jumped into the pool and grabbed at the two children. The mother and son managed to pull the boy away, but he suffered a scratch on his finger during the struggle. Wolf then forcibly submerged the young girl’s head underwater. The mother intervened, rescuing her daughter while shouting for help. The child, who had ingested water, coughed it up after being pulled to safety. Medics responded to the scene and confirmed that the children were physically unharmed, though clearly shaken by the attack.
As police arrested Wolf, she reportedly shouted to a bystander comforting the distraught mother, “Tell her I will kill her, and I will kill her whole family.”
The mother of the children later shared the emotional impact the attack had on her daughter. “My daughter is traumatized; whenever I open the apartment door, she runs away and hides, telling me she is afraid the lady will come and immerse her head in the water again,” she said in a statement.
This incident comes amidst increasing reports of hate crimes against Muslims, Arabs, and Jews, spurred by rising tensions following Israel’s war in Gaza. Human rights advocates have expressed concern about the surge in racially motivated attacks. Similar incidents include the fatal stabbing of a six-year-old Palestinian-American boy in Illinois, the February stabbing of a Palestinian-American man in Texas, and the November shooting of three Palestinian-American students in Vermont, as reported by DailyMail.