Pro Palestinian demonstrators rallied on Thursday outside the offices of two New Jersey Congress members part of a national shutdown day where protesters from across the country held events elevating their calls for a ceasefire in Gaza they marched outside the Newark office of US senator Corey Booker and at Congressman Bill Pascal's Patterson office carrying Palestinian flags and signs reading ceasefire now protesters say the conflict has reached a critical point Point pointing to records from the health Ministry inside Gaza showing more than 10,000 Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli Army since the war broke out on October 7th Palestinian Americans who live in New Jersey shared stories of family members who have been killed or are stuck in Gaza for more on the growing calls to end the war I'm joined by Rania Mustafa the executive director of the palestinian-american community center in Clifton ra thanks so much for joining me I want to talk to you first about these increased calls now and the demonstrations that have been happening um with I'll say really cries for a ceasefire what is the message uh that your organization and a lot of others are hoping to get across I think our biggest message is that enough is enough um there have been over 10,000 people that have been killed um of them over 4,000 children uh and we just are trying to appeal to people's humanity and say that enough is enough and we need to cease fire now when we heard from Folks at some of these protests I mean they shared very vulnerable and very powerful words about the grief um that's really taken over the community how are you helping others um during this time uh and what are they coming specifically to your organization for there there have been several things that we've been helping people with um the first as a community center is that we've been trying to provide spaces of community healing um through our various programs and our events um and just being together as a community and so we've been working tirelessly on making sure that people are are educated and and truly understand the Palestinian narrative yeah what I'm curious to know what you feel is the biggest piece of misinformation um and what you want the public at large to know about how Palestinian Americans not just a New Jersey but but everywhere um how they're feeling right now I think the biggest misinformation that's out there is that um we are that there are so many civilians on the ground um as you mentioned earlier we had a h silent rally yesterday where several family members came up to share their stories these are mothers fathers grandmothers grandfathers children babies um teenagers that are literally being killed or starved to death um so this isn't some sort of uh you know the human shield um theory is 100% false that's not what's happening here these are civilians that are being targeted by Israeli air strikes um there's a lot of war crimes that are happening from Barrel bombing from carpet bombing from white phosphorus there's a lot that's happening on the ground and these civilians are the ones that are paying the price I mean um in terms of how what no please go on in terms of how our community is feeling honestly we feel very um aband I think for so long and so now we're in a place where our community is literally grieving as being actively uh murdered and we are not getting the attention or the advocacy that's needed in order to end this um and at the end of the day it really doesn't take much it just takes someone recognizing someone else's Humanity um and it's difficult that we are put in these positions where we have to explain to people why we're human and why we deserve life and I honestly don't wish that position on anybody where you have to to make your appeal that I am human and I deserve life and I'm not lesser than anyone else um and that's a very difficult position to be with and I think our community as a whole has been really struggling with that Rania Mustafa is the executive director of the palestinian-american community center in Clifton uh on calls for ceasefire thank you so much for sharing those thoughts with us thank you for having me