On March 17, the 13 main Palestinian terrorist groups announced that they would stop attacks on Israel for the rest of this year. But, this negotiated truce is conditioned upon Israel ceasing to attack Palestinians and releasing all 8,000 Palestinians currently held in Israeli jails. All the parties are hedging their bets and leaving a way out of the negotiated truce that Mahmoud Abbas is attempting to coordinate. Israeli government officials have stated that they would not release 8,000 Palestinian prisoners and seemed to be holding to the line that anyone with blood on his/her hands will not be released. Israel also wants Abbas to have his security and law enforcement collect weapons from the terrorist groups.

In 2000, a small, select group of Palestinian security and law enforcement were trained to collect weapons from terrorist groups. These officers were never properly equipped or deployed. While they did seize some weapons from Hamas , they were held at bay and never truly utilized. Former Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat (Intel Report) used them as a political tool to appease the United States for a short period but did not want to antagonize his terrorist cells. The Israelis did not want this unit properly equipped; thus, they lacked equipment and were outgunned by the terrorist.