Calls Grow To Scrutinize Ceasefire Terms As Israel Faces Mounting Pressure

Analysts and advocacy voices warn that key structural issues must be addressed before any ceasefire agreement is considered sustainable.

By: David Bedein | The J.Ca | Mar 16, 2026

Over the next weeks and months, Israel will be pressured by the US into accepting a ceasefire.

However, before agreeing to a ceasefire, fundamental issues must be brought to the forefront to show that the war conducted by the Palestinians and their Iranian allies is far from over.

• The official Voice of Palestine, operating on Israeli government radio and TV frequencies, continues its daily incitement.

• The Palestinian “Pay for Slay” law continues, mandating a salary for life for anyone who kills a Jew.

• The PLO charter places the Palestinians in a permanent state of war until all Jews have been expelled from all areas that had been Mandatory Palestine.

• The PLO has now spawned a new Palestinian constitution, which does not recognize the right of any Jews to live anywhere in Palestine.

• The Palestinian-designated Jew-free areas include all of the territory which today constitutes the state of Israel.

• The Palestinian war curriculum continues to educate all Palestinian children to live a life of permanent war with the Jews, until all Jews are expelled from Palestine.

• UNRWA transforms generous humanitarian aid into cash for arms training to prepare the next generation for war. Sixty-seven nations pour 1.6 billion dollars into UNWRA for humanitarian services. UNRWA hosts five million descendants of Arabs who left Israel in the wake of the 1948 war and remain in 58 “temporary” refugee camps under the premise and promise of the right of return to Arab villages that existed before 1948.

All the above begs the question: What about the PSF, Palestinian Security Forces, established by the Israeli security apparatus to ensure at least one Palestinian partner on whom it could rely for cooperation.

Already receiving hefty salaries on the PA payroll, all levels of Israeli security document that PSF officers are consistent perpetrators of terrorism against civilians and the security forces of Israel.

Glorified as “martyrs,” all PSF groups are complicit.

The Palestinian Security Forces were formed under the Oslo Agreement signed in September 1995:

“To guarantee public order and internal security for the Palestinians of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip… shall establish a strong police force that consists of the Palestinian Police and other branches responsible for national, preventive, public, and presidential security.”

– all of which are, in theory, supposed to combat terrorism and collaborate with Israel on security matters.

PSF officers hold parallel positions in ‘resistance’ movements, either civil or military, such as the Al Aksa Martyrs Brigades (the military arm of Fatah), using armed confrontation with Israel.

Rather than upholding public order and preventing terrorism, they themselves carry out acts of terrorism against Israeli civilians and members of Israel’s security forces.

In sum, no ceasefire can be implemented in the Middle East until each of these issues is resolved.

It is crucial to understand the precise nature of the “ceasefire” that the Palestinians offer: a hudna to stop firing, a term frequently misunderstood as “truce” or “ceasefire.”

A hudna is nothing but a temporary respite and does not remotely resemble either a “truce” or a “ceasefire.”

Here, then, are four terms now in use in the Arabic understanding of what a ceasefire means:

• Hudna: tactical pause intended for rearmament
• Tahida: temporary halt in hostile activity, which can be violated at any time
• Hudaybiyyah: cessation of fighting for 10 years, invoking the “Treaty of Hudaybiyyah” in 628 CE
• Sulch: total cessation of hostile activity

Notably, a hudna, tahida, or hudaybiyyah has no relation to the mu’ahada treaty of peace that Egypt signed with Israel in 1979, or the mu’ahada treaty of peace that Jordan signed with Israel in 1994.

The authoritative Islamic Encyclopedia (London, 1922) defines “hudna” as a “temporary treaty” which can be approved or abrogated by Islamic religious leaders, depending on whether or not it serves the interests of Islam, and that a “hudna” cannot last for more than 10 years.

The Islamic Encyclopedia adds that the Hudaybia treaty is the ultimate “hudna.”

When our news agency sent a crew to monitor Yassir Arafat’s speeches following the Oslo peace accords, we documented that the PLO leader repeatedly declared that the Oslo accords were akin to the Hudaybia treaty.

No one listened.