Does ‘ceasefire’ still have any real meaning?

We're seeing an incredibly dangerous development where ceasefires are changing character, as conflict parties accept high levels of violence within the label ‘ceasefire’.

A ceasefire – as we are accustomed to think of the concept – is a kind of transition between war and peace. The parties agree to pause the fighting and then, hopefully, will initiate peace talks. Ideally, a ceasefire is thus the first step towards ending a conflict. A series of events over the past year requires us to question what ‘ceasefire’ is coming to mean in practice.

Gaza, where ceasefire is war

Gaza is the most obvious example of a ceasefire not being what it used to be.

During the current ceasefire, from its signing last October through 18 June 2026, over 1000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza. This is of course a significant reduction compared with the period before the ceasefire was signed. Officially, the number of Palestinians killed during the preceding two years of war is over 70,000.

However, research published in several highly reputable journals indicates that these deaths are probably underreported by 35–40 percent. If these researchers are correct, the true number of killed during those two years is around 100,000.

A fall in the number of killings, from 35,000–50,000 during each year of active warfare to 1,000 people killed this year during the ceasefire, obviously represents a significant reduction in violence, but it is difficult to claim that it even approaches the kind of situation we associate with the term ceasefire.

One thousand people killed in a single year is in fact the threshold applied by the Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP) to determine when a conflict (25 killings per year) becomes a war. This means that when the UCDP codes its statistics for this year, the ceasefire in Gaza will most likely be classified as a war.

False ceasefires

How can we explain that neither party is claiming that the ceasefire is over?

This is not an easy question to answer, but two plausible explanations are that:

1. Declaring that a ceasefire is over carries a heavy moral and political cost, because the party doing so may be seen as responsible for restarting the conflict. So even if a party acts in a way that to all practical purposes is a clear breach of the ceasefire, it is risky for the other party to declare that the ceasefire has ended, because that party will be seen as responsible for restarting war. With all the negative consequences that will entail.
2. Even though the situation under a ceasefire is equivalent to war, the level of violence will have declined compared with the war it put on pause. In particular, the weaker party will suffer severe consequences if it declares that the ceasefire is at an end. As far as Hamas is concerned, the ceasefire has become a kind of survival strategy. The cost of the false ceasefire is high, but the cost of all-out war would be far higher.

Both of these explanations put the civilian population in an untenable situation. Not only are they living in a humanitarian catastrophe, but they are also in constant danger of being killed if they find themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The territory the Palestinians inhabit is shrinking daily because Israel is constantly moving the ‘yellow line’ that divides Gaza in two. Palestinians are not permitted to live east of the line.

Meanwhile, if Hamas were to decide that the whole situation is a breach of the ceasefire and declare that the ceasefire is over, then Israel, in all probability, would initiate an escalation that would drastically increase the level of suffering.

A wider trend?

Previously, researchers at the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) have systematically collated data concerning ceasefires. In that data, we can identify the motivations for ceasefires. Most ceasefires are part of a peace process, with the aim being to end the conflict. But over the past 15 years, we can see a significant increase in the number of ceasefires linked to other objectives, such as humanitarian access, elections, and religious festivals (Christmas and Eid). This suggests that ceasefires have taken on a new, or supplementary, role in conflicts.

They are not only about ending conflicts.

Anecdotally, we also see a dilution of the concept of a ceasefire in several conflicts. An example of such dilution occurred in Lebanon, where a ceasefire was agreed between the Lebanese government and Israel, even though in reality, Israel’s war in Lebanon was only with Hezbollah.

Despite the ceasefire, Israel reserved itself the right to continue its war and its occupation of large parts of Lebanon, while still using the term ceasefire.

This is an incredibly dangerous development. It is important that the international community implements mechanisms to monitor ceasefires with concrete measures to impose sanctions on parties that breach them.

• The authors, Jørgen Jensehaugen and Siri Aas Rustad, are both Research Professors at PRIO.
• This text was published in Norwegian in Aftenposten.