Ceasefire underscores tri-state area's close ties to Gaza War, on both sides
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TENAFLY, N.J. (PIX11) -- The pending ceasefire in Gaza is in a war zone half a world away, but here in the tri-state region, connections to that part of the world — on both sides of the conflict — are deep and strong. That fact was very clear on Thursday in Northern New Jersey.
As Rania Mustafa, the executive director of the Palestinian American Community Center in Clifton, pointed out, “New Jersey ... has the highest number of Palestinian Americans in all of America.”
It was why her organization hosted a gathering of Palestinian community leaders on Thursday morning. It was meant to show support for the Gaza ceasefire, but to also say that nothing is guaranteed.
“We definitely feel a lot of relief,” said Mustafa, “but it's a lot of hesitancy.”
Echoing that sentiment was Ahmad Wuhidi. He’s a filmmaker from Gaza City who managed to reach the United States after being injured in an Israeli missile strike on his family’s home days after Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7 of last year.
“I lost both my mom and sister” in the Israeli military strike, Wuhidi said. His family’s losses are among some 47,000 deaths in Gaza since the war began.
Wuhidi joined with others from the Palestinian community on Thursday to publicly say that they want the bloodshed in Gaza to stop. Still, they said, they’re bracing for tragedy.
“They are hopeful,” Wuhidi said, “but cautious at the same time.”
Caution was also the watchword among Israelis in North Jersey.
Orly Amos is one of the closest friends of the family of Edan Alexander. The 21-year-old from Tenafly is one of the 98 hostages remaining in Hamas custody. Amos said that she was feeling “positive,” but added that there are simply no guarantees.
“We can't trust the terrorists, we try to do that before,” Amos said about the deal that Israel struck this week with Hamas. Nonetheless, she added, “Now we feel closer [to a hostage release] than ever.”
Amos lives in a neighborhood in Tenafly where lawn signs with Alexander’s face on them are visible on many streets. There are yellow ribbons tied around many of the trees in the leafy suburb, and the town holds a march every Friday calling for Alexander’s safe return.
While Amos and her neighbors certainly have a different outlook on the ceasefire than their Palestinian neighbors here, the two groups share at least one hope: that the hostage release will be at least a start of something good. Still, there was a touch of skepticism expressed by Amos.
"Until I see him in Israel," she said about her hostage friend who's in the Israeli military, "I'm not going to believe that [he's free]."
That skepticism was further expressed by Jason Shames, CEO of The Jewish Federation of Northern New Jersey.
"We're basically trading terrorists with blood on their hands for babies, women and children," Shames said, "and I think that sits heavy in the hearts of Jewish people, and especially Israelis."
Shames went on to say, in an interview, that getting hostages back is the ultimate goal, but the fate of all of them is not clear, and neither is the future of the ceasefire.
"It's great to have them home," Shames said, "but I think that at the same time there's a lot of consternation about what's next in the long term impact of this."