Editing 1949 Armistice Agreements (section)

== Agreements ==

=== With Egypt ===
On 6 January 1949, [[Ralph Bunche]] announced that Egypt had finally consented to start talks with Israel on an armistice. The talks began on the Greek island of [[Rhodes]] on 12 January. Shortly after their commencement, Israel agreed to the release of a besieged Egyptian brigade in [[Al-Faluja|Faluja]], but soon rescinded their agreement.<ref>{{cite journal | author = Hilde Henriksen Waage | title = The Winner Takes All: The 1949 Island of Rhodes Armistice Negotiations Revisited | journal = Middle East Journal | volume = 65 | year = 2011 | issue = 2 | pages = 279–304 | doi=10.3751/65.2.15| s2cid = 145309069 }}</ref> At the end of the month, the talks floundered. Israel demanded that Egypt withdraw all its forces from the former area of Mandate Palestine.{{Citation needed|date=July 2012|reason=the words Mandate Palestine does not appear in the Armistice Agreement}} Egypt insisted that Arab forces withdraw to the positions which they held on 14 October 1948, as per the Security Council Resolution S/1070 of 4 November 1948, and that the Israeli forces withdraw to positions north of the [[Ashkelon|Majdal]]–[[Hebron]] road.

The deadlock culminated on 12 February 1949 with the murder of [[Hassan al-Banna]], leader of the Islamist group [[Muslim Brotherhood]]. Israel threatened to abandon the talks, whereupon the United States appealed to the parties to bring them to a successful conclusion.

On 24 February the ''Israel–Egypt Armistice Agreement'' was signed in [[Rhodes]].<ref name="EgyptIsraelArmistice1949" /> The main points of the armistice agreement were:
* The Armistice Demarcation Line is not to be construed in any sense as a political or territorial boundary, and is delineated without prejudice to rights, claims and positions of either Party to the Armistice as regards ultimate "settlement of the Palestine question".
* The armistice demarcation line was drawn for the most part along the 1922 international border between Egypt and [[Mandatory Palestine]], except near the [[Mediterranean Sea]], where Egypt remained in control of a strip of land along the coast, which became known as the [[Gaza Strip]].
* The Egyptian forces besieged in the ''[[Faluja Pocket]]'' were allowed to return to Egypt with their weapons, and the area was handed over to Israeli military control.<ref>mfa.gov.il [http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Foreign+Relations/Israels+Foreign+Relations+since+1947/1947-1974/Israel-Egypt+Armistice+Agreement.htm Article IV. 3. "The provisions of this Agreement are dictated exclusively by military considerations and are valid only for the period of the Armistice"]</ref>
* A zone on both sides of the border around [[El Audja el Hafir, history of Palestine|'Uja al-Hafeer]] was to be demilitarized, and became the seat of the bilateral armistice committee.

=== With Lebanon ===

The agreement with Lebanon was signed on 23 March 1949.<ref name="LebanonIsraelArmistice1949" /> The main points were:
* The provisions of this agreement being dictated exclusively by military considerations.
* The armistice line ("[[Green Line (Israel)|Green Line]]", see also [[Blue Line (Lebanon)|Blue Line [Lebanon]]]) was drawn along the international boundary between Lebanon and Mandatory Palestine.<ref name="articleV">[https://books.google.com/books?id=VaUvqHNd6m0C&dq=the+international+boundary+between+Lebanon+and+Palestine&pg=PA89 1949 Lebanon / Israeli Armistice Agreement Article V] The case for Palestine: an international law perspective By John B. Quigley, p. 89</ref>
* Israel withdrew its forces from 13 villages in Lebanese territory, which were occupied during the war.

=== With Jordan ===
[[File:Members of Israeli Delegation to Armistice talks in Rhodes, January 1949.jpg|thumb|250px|The Israeli delegation to the 1949 Armistice Agreements talks. Left to right: Commanders [[Yehoshafat Harkabi]], Aryeh Simon, [[Yigael Yadin]], and [[Yitzhak Rabin]] (1949)]]
These armistice talks began on 4 March, and were conducted on Jordanian territory. Despite the insistence by [[Ralph Bunche]] that in all four talks, the ceasefire be strictly observed, while negotiating with Jordan Israel engaged in military operations to occupy extensive swathes of territory in both the central and southern Negev desert. It also managed to secure further land by using the threat of military intervention unless some claims were accepted.<ref>Ben-Dror, Elad, [https://www.jstor.org/stable/41721187'The Armistice Talks between Israel and Jordan, 1949: The View from Rhodes,'] [[Middle Eastern Studies (journal)|Middle Eastern Studies]] November 2012, Vol. 48, No. 6 pp. 879–902 [879]
</ref>
The agreement with Jordan was signed on 3 April 1949.<ref name="JordanIsraelArmistice1949" /> The main points:
* 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, the provisions of this Agreement being dictated exclusively by military considerations.
* Jordanian forces remained in most positions held by them, particularly [[East Jerusalem]] which included the Old City.
* Jordan withdrew its forces from their front posts overlooking the [[Plain of Sharon]]. In return, Israel agreed to allow Jordanian forces to take over positions previously held by [[Iraq]]i forces.
* Exchange of territorial control: Israel received control in the area known as [[Wadi Ara]] and the [[Little Triangle]] in exchange for territory in the southern hills of Hebron.

In March 1949 as the Iraqi forces withdrew from Palestine and handed over their positions to the smaller Jordanian legion, 3 Israeli brigades maneuvered into positions of advantage in Operation ''Shin-Tav-Shin'' and [[Operation Uvda]]. The operations allowed Israel to renegotiate the cease fire line in the southern Negev (giving access to the [[Red Sea]]) and the [[Wadi Ara]] area in a secret agreement reached on 23 March 1949 and incorporated into the General Armistice Agreement. The Green Line was then redrawn in blue ink on the southern map to give the impression that a shift of the Green Line had been made.<ref>The Politics of Partition; King Abdullah, The Zionists, and Palestine 1921–1951 Avi Shlaim Oxford University Press, Revised Edition, 2004 {{ISBN|978-0-19-829459-7}} pp. 299, 312</ref> The events that led to a change in the [[City Line (Jerusalem)|Green Line]] was an exchange of fertile land in the Bethlehem area to Israeli control and the village of [[Wadi Fukin]] being given to Jordanian control. On 15 July when the Israeli Army expelled the population of Wadi Fukin after the village had been transferred to the Israeli-occupied area under the terms of the Armistice Agreement concluded between Israel and the Jordan Kingdom the Mixed Armistice Commission decided on 31 August, by a majority vote, that Israel had violated the Armistice Agreement by expelling villagers across the demarcation line and decided that the villagers should be allowed to return to their homes. However, when the villagers returned to Wadi Fukin under the supervision of the United Nations observers on September 6, they found most of their houses destroyed and were again compelled by the Israeli Army to return to Jordanian controlled territory.<ref name="WadiFukin">UN Press Release PAL/537 4 November 1949 – UN Press Officer in Jerusalem [http://domino.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/85255a0a0010ae82852555340060479d/7b5942522358001885256a76006377eb "when the villagers returned to Wadi Fukin under the supervision of the United Nations observers on September 6, they found most of their houses destroyed and were again compelled by the Israeli Army to return to Arab territory."] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120609143644/http://domino.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/85255a0a0010ae82852555340060479d/7b5942522358001885256a76006377eb |date=2012-06-09 }}</ref>

The United Nations Chairman of the Mixed Commission, Colonel Garrison B. Coverdale (US), pressed for a solution of this issue to be found in the Mixed Armistice Commission, in an amicable and UN spirit. After some hesitation, this procedure was accepted and finally an agreement was reached whereby the Armistice Demarcation Line was changed to place Wadi Fukin under Jordanian authority who, in turn, agreed to transfer of some uninhabited, but fertile territory south of Bethlehem to Israel control.<ref name="WadiFukin" />

* A Special Committee was to be formed to make arrangements for safe movement of traffic between [[Jerusalem]] and [[Mount Scopus]] campus of [[Hebrew University]], along the [[Latrun]]-[[Jerusalem]] Highway, free access to the Holy Places, and other matters.

=== With Syria ===
{{Main|Israel–Syria Mixed Armistice Commission}}
Armistice talks with Syria started at [[Gesher B'not Yaacov]], on the [[River Jordan]], in April 1949,<ref>Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, [http://www.mfa.gov.il/mfa/foreignpolicy/mfadocuments/yearbook1/pages/israel-syria%20armistice%20agreement.aspx Israel–Syria Armistice Agreement] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151124044947/http://mfa.gov.il/MFA/ForeignPolicy/MFADocuments/Yearbook1/Pages/Israel-Syria%20Armistice%20Agreement.aspx |date=2015-11-24 }}</ref> after the other armistice agreements had been concluded. The agreement with Syria was signed on 20 July 1949.<ref name="SyriaIsraelArmistice1949" />

Syria withdrew its forces from most of the territories it controlled west of the international border, which became [[demilitarized zone]]s. The territory retained by Syria that lay west of the 1923 Palestinian Mandate border and which had been allocated to the Jewish state under the UN partition plan comprised 66 square kilometers in the Jordan Valley.<ref>''[[The Missing Peace (book)|The Missing Peace – The Inside Story of the Fight for Middle East Peace]]'' (2004), by [[Dennis Ross]]. {{ISBN|978-0-374-52980-2}}. pp 584–585</ref> These territories were designated [[demilitarized zone]]s (DMZs) and remained under Syrian control. It was emphasised that the armistice line was "not to be interpreted as having any relation whatsoever to ultimate territorial arrangements." (Article V)