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 shar

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