PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — Israel and Hamas moved ahead on a key first step of the tenuous Gaza ceasefire agreement on Monday by freeing hostages and prisoners, raising hopes that the US-brokered deal might lead to a permanent end to the two-year war that ravaged the Palestinian territory, the Associated Press reported.
“This has just been a total horror show for the people of Gaza, and they have been subjected to a genocidal assault from the very beginning,” said Joel Beinin, part of the Jewish-Palestinian Alliance in Portland.
Beinin is also a former professor at Stanford University and a leading scholar on labor, politics and social movements in the Arab world. Since March, the Jewish-Palestinian Alliance has held weekly events each Friday at Pioneer Courthouse Square downtown in a shared call for peace across once divided lines.
He also has a direct connection to the events in that region. He said Hamas militants took his Jewish niece hostage in November 2023 and held her captive for 54 days.
The day after she was released, he said, he learned her husband had been killed.
Clutching their photo, Beinin told KOIN 6 News that while the fragile ceasefire is holding for now, the path to peace is still uncertain.
“It’s a very fragile truce. A very welcome truce,” he said.
While calls for peace echo at home, Portland-based Mercy Corps has been in Gaza since before the war began two years ago. With borders still mostly closed, they’ve turned to trucking in clean water while waiting for full access.
“The access here is not a physical problem,” said Katie Crosby with Mercy Corps. “It’s a political problem and it is a matter of getting the permission of all the parties to be able to move into Gaza and throughout Gaza safely and to deliver aid to those who need it the most.”
Mercy Corps said they have supplies staged at the border for more than 160,000 people ready to be delivered. They are urging world leaders to ensure aid can flow freely.
In Portland, the Jewish-Palestinian Alliance will continue its Friday vigils, calling not just for aid but for lasting peace.
Joel Beinin is hoping that one day Israelis and Palestinians can build a shared future rooted in equal rights and mutual recognition.
“There will have to be a political struggle for equal rights for everyone who lives between the river and the sea, in whatever constitutional form that may take,” he said.
Anthony Kustura
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