There are moments in history when words lose their meaning. Not because dictionaries are rewritten, nor because language itself changes, but because political power empties words of the realities they once described. The word ceasefire has increasingly acquired this desolate quality when used by Israeli and US officials. What was once understood to mean the suspension of violence, the silencing of guns, and the creation of political space for peace has become something else entirely: a managerial term for the continuation of war by other means.