Truce Commission
When the U.N. Security Council was advised about the deteriorating conditions, it. created a Truce Commission staffed by consular officers from the French, Belgian and U.S. embassies in Jerusalem. Having no postal facilities of its own, outgoing Commission mail was processed by the French Consular offices. Figure 5 shows a rare service cover from the Commission posted [13 May 1948] to Paris 3 days before Israel declared its independence and was attacked by combined Arab armies. The U.N. called for a cessation of hostilities (Resolution #50) and a truce supervised by its mediator (Count Bernadotte) with the help of a group of military advisors. As it is now known, the U.N. Truce Supervisory Organization (UNTSO) with representatives of the Jewish State and each of the aggressor States to negotiate a separate “peace” on the Island of Rhodes (February-July 1949). Figure 6 shows a letter posted to the Netherlands by a member of the Truce Commission in the midsts of those negotiations (May 11, 1949). The War officially ended with the parties signed an armistice on 29 July 1949.
UNTSO military observers are today attached to the U.N.’s peacekeeping forces that serve with the Disengagement Obseerver Force in Israel-occupied Syria, the Interim Force in Lebanon, and the Multinational Force and Observers in the Sinai Desert.
