Read Palestine

Lebanese-Israeli General Armistice Agreement

Properties2
tags
aliasesIsraeli-Lebanese General Armistice Agreement, Lebanon-Israel Armistice Agreement, Lebanese-Israeli Armistice Agreement

15 min read

Summary

The General Armistice Agreement between Lebanon and Israel signed at Ras En Naqoura on 23 March 1949, transmitted the same day by cablegram from the Acting Mediator, Ralph J. Bunche, and published as Security Council document S/1296/Rev.1 of 8 April 1949 in the Official Records’ Special Supplement No. 4: responding to the Security Council resolution of 16 November 1948, it establishes a general armistice between the two Parties’ land, sea and air forces, affirms that no military or political advantage should be gained under the truce and that its provisions are dictated exclusively by military considerations and prejudice no rights, claims or positions in the ultimate peaceful settlement, fixes the Armistice Demarcation Line on the international boundary between the Lebanon and Palestine with only defensive forces in its region — capped in the Annex at 1,500 officers and enlisted men for each Party, with named general lines behind which no other forces may be employed — requires withdrawal to the Line, reduction to defensive strength and mine clearance within ten days, provides for the exchange of all prisoners of war at Ras En Naqoura within twenty-four hours under United Nations supervision, and creates a five-member Mixed Armistice Commission, chaired by the United Nations Chief of Staff of the Truce Supervision Organization and headquartered at the frontier posts north of Metulla and at En Naqoura, to supervise execution; the Agreement is not subject to ratification, comes into force immediately on signing, and remains in force until a peaceful settlement is achieved (Lebanese-Israeli General Armistice Agreement, PDF p.1-9).

What the file is

Security Council Official Records, Fourth Year, Special Supplement No. 4, document S/1296/Rev.1, 8 April 1949: the Acting Mediator’s cablegram of 23 March 1949 transmitting the Agreement’s text. 9 PDF pages, about 5,270 words as supplied (5,259 words in the text copy as counted on intake). The document is bilingual, English in the left column and French in the right on printed p.1-7 (PDF p.3-9); the cablegram marks the original text as English. The Agreement’s eight articles, its signature block and its one Annex (Definition of Defensive Forces) are complete in the file, unlike the Egypt-Israel agreement in this wiki, whose annexes are not reproduced. The text copy’s OCR is heavily garbled throughout, especially in the French column; the section account below paraphrases, and quotations were kept to passages legible in the text copy. The signature block and the Annex were checked against the original.

Section by section

  • Cover and contents (PDF p.1-2). Cover of the Security Council Official Records, Fourth Year, Special Supplement No. 4, Lake Success, New York. The contents list the cablegram and Agreement at printed p.1 and the Annex, Definition of defensive forces, at printed p.6.
  • Covering cablegram (PDF p.3 / printed p.1). The Acting Mediator, Ralph J. Bunche, informs the President of the Security Council that a general armistice agreement, in pursuance of the Security Council resolution of 16 November 1948, was signed by the delegations of Israel and Lebanon at Ras En Naqoura on 23 March 1949, and transmits its text. A footnote records that the document includes mimeographed documents S/1296, S/1296/Add.1, S/1296/Corr.1 and S/1296/Corr.2.
  • Preamble (PDF p.3-4 / printed p.1-2). The Parties respond to the 16 November 1948 resolution, which called on them, as a further provisional measure under Article 40 of the Charter and to facilitate the transition from the present truce to permanent peace in Palestine, to negotiate an armistice; they decided to negotiate under United Nations Chairmanship on implementation of that resolution and appointed representatives empowered to negotiate and conclude an Armistice Agreement, whose full powers were exchanged and found in good and proper form.
  • Article I (PDF p.4 / printed p.2). Principles fully observed during the armistice: the Security Council’s injunction against resort to military force in the settlement of the Palestine question to be scrupulously respected; no aggressive action by either Party’s land, sea or air forces to be undertaken, planned or threatened against the people or armed forces of the other, “planned” having no bearing on normal staff planning; each Party’s right to security and freedom from fear of attack fully respected; the armistice accepted as an indispensable step toward liquidation of armed conflict and restoration of peace in Palestine.
  • Article II (PDF p.4 / printed p.2). No military or political advantage should be gained under the truce ordered by the Security Council; and no provision shall prejudice either Party’s rights, claims and positions in the ultimate peaceful settlement of the Palestine question, the provisions being dictated exclusively by military considerations.
  • Article III (PDF p.4-5 / printed p.2-3). A general armistice between the two Parties’ armed forces — land, sea and air — is established. No element of either Party’s military or para-military forces, including non-regular forces, shall commit any warlike or hostile act against the other’s forces or against civilians in territory under the other’s control, advance beyond or pass over the Armistice Demarcation Line for any purpose whatsoever, or enter the other’s air space or the waters within three miles of the other’s coastline. No warlike act or act of hostility shall be conducted from territory controlled by one Party against the other.
  • Article IV (PDF p.5 / printed p.3). The Article V line is designated the Armistice Demarcation Line, delineated in pursuance of the purpose and intent of the 16 November 1948 resolution; its basic purpose is to delineate the line beyond which the Parties’ armed forces shall not move; and the armed forces’ rules prohibiting civilians from crossing the fighting lines or entering the area between them remain in effect as applied to this Line.
  • Article V (PDF p.5 / printed p.3). The Armistice Demarcation Line follows the international boundary between the Lebanon and Palestine. In the Line’s region the Parties’ military forces shall consist of defensive forces only, as defined in the Annex. Withdrawal of forces to the Line and their reduction to defensive strength shall be completed within ten days of signing; removal of mines from mined roads and areas evacuated by either Party, and transmission of plans showing the minefields’ location to the other Party, shall be completed within the same period.
  • Article VI (PDF p.5-6 / printed p.3-4). All prisoners of war detained by either Party and belonging to the other’s regular or irregular armed forces shall be exchanged under United Nations supervision and control throughout, at Ras En Naqoura within twenty-four hours of signing. Prisoners under pending penal prosecution or sentenced for crime or other offence are included. Personal effects are to be returned to the prisoner, or, if he has escaped or died, to his Party. Unregulated matters follow the principles of the International Convention Relating to the Treatment of Prisoners of War, signed at Geneva on 27 July 1929. The Mixed Armistice Commission assumes responsibility for locating missing persons, military or civilian, in each Party’s controlled areas to facilitate their expeditious exchange, with each Party’s full co-operation.
  • Article VII (PDF p.6-7 / printed p.4-5). Execution is supervised by a Mixed Armistice Commission of five members, two designated by each Party, chaired by the United Nations Chief of Staff of the Truce Supervision Organization or a senior officer from its Observer personnel designated by him after consultation with both Parties. It maintains headquarters at the Frontier Post north of Metulla and at the Lebanese Frontier Post at En Naqoura, is first convened by the Chief of Staff within one week of signing, decides by unanimity where possible and otherwise by majority of members present and voting, makes its own procedure (quorum a majority, meetings only after due notice), may employ Observers from the Parties’ military organizations or United Nations personnel (United Nations Observers remaining under the Chief of Staff’s command), receives claims and complaints through its Chairman for equitable and mutually satisfactory settlement, its interpretation of a provision other than the Preamble and Articles I and II prevails, it may recommend modifications, it reports to both Parties with a copy of each report to the Secretary-General, its members and its Observers are accorded such freedom of movement and access in the areas covered by the Agreement as the Commission may determine to be necessary, provided that when such decisions of the Commission are reached by majority vote United Nations Observers only shall be employed (paragraph 10), and its expenses other than United Nations Observers’ are shared equally.
  • Article VIII and signatures (PDF p.7-8 / printed p.5-6). The Agreement is not subject to ratification and comes into force immediately on signing; negotiated in pursuance of the 16 November 1948 resolution, it remains in force until a peaceful settlement between the Parties is achieved, except that the Parties may by mutual consent revise or suspend any provision other than Articles I and III at any time, and after one year either Party may call on the Secretary-General to convoke a conference to review, revise or suspend any provision other than Articles I and III, participation being obligatory; if that conference fails to agree, either Party may bring the matter before the Security Council. It is signed in quintuplicate: one copy to each Party, two to the Secretary-General for the Security Council and the United Nations Conciliation Commission on Palestine, and one to the Acting Mediator. Done at Ras En Naqoura on 23 March 1949, in the presence of the Personal Deputy of the Acting Mediator and the United Nations Chief of Staff. The Israeli signatories as printed are Lieutenant-Colonel Mordechai Makleff, Yenoshua Pelman and Shabtai Rosenne; the Lebanese signatories as printed are Lieutenant-Colonel Toufic Salem and Commandant J. Harb (names checked against the original; spellings as printed — see Open questions).
  • Annex, Definition of Defensive Forces (PDF p.8-9 / printed p.6-7). The defensive forces under Article V, paragraph 2, shall not exceed, for Lebanon: two battalions and two companies of Lebanese Regular Army Infantry, one field battery of 4 guns and one company of 12 light armoured cars armed with machine guns and 6 light tanks armed with light guns (20 vehicles, total as printed), total 1500 officers and enlisted men, and no other military forces south of the general line El Qasmiye-Nabatiye Ett Tahta-Hasbaiya. For Israel: one infantry battalion, one support company with six mortars and six machine guns, one reconnaissance company with six armoured cars and six armoured jeeps, one battery of field artillery with four guns, one platoon of field engineers and service units as Quartermaster and Ordnance, total not to exceed fifteen hundred officers and enlisted men, and no other military forces north of the general line Nahariya-Tarshiha-Jish-Marus. No restriction of movement is imposed on either side for the supply or movement of these defensive forces behind the Demarcation Line.

Key passages

  • “The Armistice Demarcation Line shall follow the international boundary between the Lebanon and Palestine” (Article V, paragraph 1, PDF p.5 / printed p.3).
  • “no provision of this Agreement shall in any way prejudice the rights, claims and positions of either Party hereto in the ultimate peaceful settlement of the Palestine question” (Article II, paragraph 2, PDF p.4 / printed p.2).

Evidence the work relies on

  • The Agreement is a negotiated instrument, not an argued report; it gives no evidence section. Its stated authorities and incorporated documents are: the Security Council resolution of 16 November 1948 (preamble, Articles II, III, IV and VIII, with Article 40 of the Charter cited in the preamble); the Annex’s definition of defensive forces (incorporated by Article V); and the International Convention Relating to the Treatment of Prisoners of War, Geneva, 27 July 1929 (Article VI). Its transmission history is stated in its own footnote 1: mimeographed documents S/1296, S/1296/Add.1, S/1296/Corr.1 and S/1296/Corr.2, consolidated in S/1296/Rev.1.

Analysis

The Agreement’s method, in its own terms, is the shortest of the 1949 armistices so far in the wiki: eight articles, against the Egypt-Israel agreement’s twelve, because its demarcation problem is solved in one sentence — the Line follows the existing international boundary between the Lebanon and Palestine (Article V.1) — so no line has to be drawn point by point, no area demilitarized and no third-party front deferred. Its non-prejudice rule is stated once and generally, in Article II.2 (provisions dictated exclusively by military considerations), rather than repeated for the Line and the settlement separately as in the Egypt-Israel text. Its time limits are correspondingly immediate: prisoners exchanged within twenty-four hours (against twenty-one days in the Egypt-Israel agreement), withdrawal and demining within ten days. Its Annex, reproduced in the file, does the quantitative work the Egypt-Israel file leaves by reference: equal 1,500-man defensive-force ceilings, itemized by unit and weapon, held back behind two named general lines — El Qasmiye-Nabatiye Ett Tahta-Hasbaiya for Lebanon and Nahariya-Tarshiha-Jish-Marus for Israel. Its supervisory machinery is smaller — a five-member Commission with two headquarters, at the Frontier Post north of Metulla and at the Lebanese Frontier Post at En Naqoura, and no appeal committee: its interpretation of every provision except the Preamble and Articles I and II simply prevails. Revision is fenced off from Articles I and III (in the Egypt-Israel agreement, from Articles I and II), so the general armistice and non-aggression core of Article III is among the provisions that cannot be revised or suspended even by mutual consent.

People, organizations, places and events

Ralph Bunche, Mordechai Maklef, Lebanon, Israel, Ras En Naqoura, Palestine Conciliation Commission, UN Security Council

Concepts

Green Line — this Agreement’s Line is the Lebanon-Palestine international boundary, one of the 1949 armistice lines; the Agreement itself calls it the Armistice Demarcation Line, fixes it by the boundary rather than delineating a new line, and states in Article II that its provisions are dictated exclusively by military considerations (PDF p.4-5).

How it relates to other sources

  • This is the second of the 1949 armistices in the wiki as a primary text, after the Egyptian-Israeli General Armistice Agreement of 24 February 1949. The two share the preamble form, the Article I principles, the non-prejudice rule and the quintuplicate signature clause, and differ as recorded in Analysis: demarcation by an existing international boundary instead of a drawn Gaza-Rafah line, eight articles instead of twelve, a five-member instead of seven-member Commission, a reproduced Annex instead of annexes by reference, a twenty-four-hour prisoner exchange instead of twenty-one days, and Articles I and III instead of I and II protected from revision.
  • Palestinian Right of Return: Sacred, Legal, and Possible glosses Resolution 194’s “earliest practicable date” as the cessation of hostilities, February 1949 (Armistice with Egypt) to July 1949 (with Syria), as recorded on UN General Assembly Resolution 194; this Agreement, signed 23 March 1949, falls inside that span, and its own text contains no provision on refugees or return — its prisoner and missing-persons provisions (Article VI) are its only provisions on persons held or missing.
  • The Annex’s Israeli general line runs through places other sources in the wiki treat at length: Tarshiha lies on the Nahariya-Tarshiha-Jish-Marus line, north of which no Israeli forces other than the defined defensive forces may be employed (Annex I.2(ii)); the Lebanese general line is El Qasmiye-Nabatiye Ett Tahta-Hasbaiya, south of which no other Lebanese forces may be employed (Annex I.1(ii)). Tarshiha is a village Nakba and Survival records as largely uprooted in Operation Hiram, with its remaining residents resisting transfer into 1949 (Tarshiha); the Agreement itself says nothing about the villages’ inhabitants, only that no Israeli forces beyond the defensive forces defined may be employed north of that line.
  • Its transmission copies link it, as with the Egypt-Israel agreement, to the Palestine Conciliation Commission created by Resolution 194 (III): Palestine — Progress Report of the United Nations Mediator: two of its quintuplicate copies go to the Secretary-General for the Security Council and for the Conciliation Commission.

Open questions

  • The Annex’s Lebanon vehicle total does not follow from its components as printed: 12 light armoured cars and 6 light tanks are stated, with a parenthetical total of 20 vehicles — 12 and 6 sum to 18 (computed from the Annex, PDF p.8 / printed p.6). Both figures are recorded as printed; the file gives no further component that would make up the difference.
  • Footnote 1 differs between the two columns as printed: the English footnote lists the document as including S/1296, S/1296/Add.1, S/1296/Corr.1 and S/1296/Corr.2, while the French footnote states that the document replaces S/1296, S/1296/Corr.1 and S/1296/Add.1, without Corr.2 (PDF p.3 / printed p.1). Both are recorded as printed.
  • Signatory spellings as printed in this document, checked against the original: Mordechai Makleff, with double f, where The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine and the existing page Mordechai Maklef use Maklef; and Yenoshua Pelman, first name as printed, for the second Israeli signatory (PDF p.8 / printed p.6). No other source in the wiki so far names Pelman, Shabtai Rosenne, Toufic Salem or J. Harb, so their spellings rest on this document alone.
  • The document heading in the text copy prints the document symbol once as “S/1296/Rev.11” (PDF p.3), where the contents page and the table-of-contents footnote give S/1296/Rev.1; the reading is treated as an OCR slip for Rev.1 and recorded in the reading notes.

Coverage

PDF p.1-9 of 9, read in full

Graph View

Backlinks