United Nations Emergency Force

The Suez Crisis became an armed conflict on 29 October 1956, when Israel began military operations against Egypt; France and the United Kingdom subsequently joined the fighting.[7] British and French forces landed in the Suez Canal Zone, while attempts to secure a Security Council decision were blocked by British and French vetoes.[2] The General Assembly then addressed the crisis through an emergency special session, calling for a ceasefire and developing arrangements for an international force to supervise the cessation of hostilities.[7][2]

The proposed force addressed two connected requirements: supervising the departure of foreign forces from Egyptian territory and separating Egyptian and Israeli forces after that withdrawal.[6] Its intended tasks therefore extended beyond observing an immediate ceasefire to providing an international buffer along a frontier where renewed clashes remained a concern.[2] The initial deployment areas included the Suez Canal and Sinai; later positions included the Gaza Armistice Demarcation Line and the Egyptian side of the international border in Sinai.[6]

Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld and Canadian External Affairs Minister Lester B. Pearson played important roles in developing the force, while Canadian Major-General E. L. M. Burns became its first commander.[8] The force’s international composition and UN command distinguished it from the national forces whose withdrawal it would supervise, while the exclusion of permanent Security Council members and countries with a special interest in the conflict formed part of its organizational design.[3]

For Israel, the arrangements were connected to the conditions under which it would leave territory captured during the Sinai campaign.[9] The decision to station UNEF along the Egypt-Israel border, together with Egyptian assurances concerning free navigation in the Gulf of Eilat, formed part of the context for Israel’s staged withdrawal between November 1956 and March 1957 and the reopening of the Straits of Tiran.[9] The force’s eventual presence at Sharm el-Sheikh consequently had significance for access to the Gulf of Aqaba as well as for the separation of troops on land.[3]

General Assembly Resolution 1000, adopted on 5 November 1956, established a UN command for an emergency international force to secure and supervise the cessation of hostilities in accordance with Resolution 997.[10] It appointed Burns, then chief of staff of the UN Truce Supervision Organization, as chief of the command and passed by 57 votes to none, with 19 abstentions.[10] Resolution 1001 followed on 7 November, approving the Secretary-General’s guiding principles for UNEF’s organization and functioning and concurring in its proposed functions.[11]

Resolutions 1000 and 1001 divided the force’s creation into two steps: the first established the command, and the second approved the guiding principles, functions, size, and composition. Resolution 1001 passed by 64 votes to none, with 12 abstentions.[10][11]

Resolution 1001 also established an Advisory Committee chaired by the Secretary-General, with representatives from Brazil, Canada, Ceylon, Colombia, India, Norway, and Pakistan.[11] UNEF was directed by the Secretary-General under the broad authority of General Assembly resolutions, with advice from that committee.[12] Its contingents came from UN member states other than the permanent members of the Security Council, and the host country’s voluntary consent extended to acceptance of the national contingents involved.[12]

The mandate distinguished supervision from enforcement. UNEF was an armed peacekeeping operation based on consent and cooperation, not an enforcement action, and its units were to use weapons only in self-defense and with utmost restraint.[2][3] The force’s ability to operate therefore rested on cooperation rather than authority to compel the parties to accept its decisions.[2]

The first troop transport arrived in Egypt on 15 November 1956, after Egyptian consent to the force’s entry and discussions with the Secretary-General concerning its character and functions.[13] In Cairo, Hammarskjöld and Egyptian officials discussed the basic principles governing UNEF’s presence and cooperation with Egyptian authorities.[13] Their aide-mémoire recorded Egypt’s undertaking to act in good faith on matters concerning UNEF and a reciprocal UN undertaking to be guided in good faith by the assigned task, including willingness to maintain the force until that task was completed.[13]

UNEF became operational by mid-November with approximately 6,000 troops drawn from ten countries: Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Denmark, Finland, India, Indonesia, Norway, Sweden, and Yugoslavia.[3] By February 1957, its strength was recorded as 6,073 personnel.[8] Although the United States supplied no troops, it supported the operation with equipment, supplies, transport, and airlift.[12] The force’s initial command under Burns combined multinational contingents within the UN arrangements established by the Assembly.[3][12]

The withdrawal supervised by UNEF proceeded in stages rather than as a single departure.[3] The last British and French troops left Egyptian territory by 22 December 1956, while the Israeli withdrawal continued into March 1957.[14] UNEF’s deployment subsequently shifted from supervising the departing forces toward maintaining separation between Egypt and Israel along the border, in the Gaza area, and at Sharm el-Sheikh.[6]

In February 1957, the General Assembly called for UNEF to be placed along the Egyptian-Israeli armistice demarcation line after Israel withdrew from the Sharm el-Sheikh and Gaza areas.[5] UNEF arrived in Gaza on 7 March and at Sharm el-Sheikh on 8 March.[5] Israel did not consent to the force being stationed on its side of the line, so UNEF remained on Egyptian and Egyptian-controlled territory.[5] Its position at Sharm el-Sheikh placed it at the entrance to the Gulf of Aqaba, while its Gaza and frontier deployments supplied the landward buffer between the two sides.[3][6]

UNEF’s practical work extended beyond supervising the withdrawal and standing between armies.[8] Its personnel cleared minefields, repaired roads damaged during the fighting, oversaw prisoner-of-war exchanges, and provided security for British and French warships engaged in clearing mines from the Suez Canal.[8] The force also operated approximately eighty observation posts, conducted mobile patrols, and carried out air surveillance of the frontier region.[8]

During the 1958 reporting period, UNEF patrolled 273 kilometres in the Gaza Strip, along the international frontier, and in the Sharm el-Sheikh region.[4] Its continuing function after the foreign withdrawal was to maintain quiet along the border between Israel and the Egyptian region of the United Arab Republic.[4] Between 9 October 1957 and 27 August 1958, the line experienced virtually unbroken quiet, with 95 reported incidents, all but a very few of them minor.[4]

At that stage, Lieutenant-General E. L. M. Burns commanded approximately 5,400 officers and other ranks.[4] The contingents then serving came from Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Denmark, India, Norway, Sweden, and Yugoslavia.[4] Indonesia and Finland had voluntarily withdrawn their contingents, and their personnel had been only partially replaced; Burns considered that a reduction below the existing strength would diminish the force’s effectiveness.[4] Indonesia’s departure occurred in September 1957 and Finland’s in December, followed by Colombia’s withdrawal in December 1958.[8]

UNEF’s buffer function also had a maritime dimension: its presence helped safeguard passage by Israeli shipping through the Straits of Tiran.[6] Its deployment on the Egyptian side of the armistice line and at Sharm el-Sheikh was intended to deter, if not stop, raids from Gaza and interference with navigation through the Strait of Tiran and Gulf of Aqaba.[15] The related effort to obtain a relaxation of Egyptian blockade measures in the Suez Canal did not succeed.[15]

The force’s strength declined over the course of the deployment, reaching approximately 3,400 personnel by 1967; a more precise account gives 3,378 at the time of withdrawal.[3][8] Its continuing effectiveness depended on Egyptian cooperation and on a voluntary arrangement keeping Egyptian troops out of a defined buffer zone.[5] UNEF had no authority to stop Egyptian troops moving within Egyptian territory, because it remained a peacekeeping force rather than an enforcement force.[5] That limitation became directly relevant when Egyptian military movements altered conditions around its positions in May 1967.[6]

On 16 May 1967, the United Arab Republic’s chief of staff wrote to UNEF commander Major-General Indar Jit Rikhye requesting the withdrawal of troops from observation posts along the eastern borders, where Egyptian forces were concentrating in Sinai.[16] U Thant sought clarification and stated that, if Egypt withdrew consent to UNEF’s presence in its territory and Gaza, he would order the withdrawal of the entire force from Gaza and Sinai.[16] Further Egyptian military requests on 17 May concerned the departure of UNEF posts and units from particular positions.[5]

Egyptian units took over a number of UNEF posts on 17 and 18 May.[6] On 18 May, Egyptian Foreign Minister Mahmoud Riad formally informed U Thant that Egypt had decided to terminate UNEF’s presence in Egyptian territory and the Gaza Strip and requested withdrawal as soon as possible.[5] Thant accepted the request that day, maintaining that UNEF had entered with Egyptian consent and could remain only while that consent continued.[5][6]

The Secretary-General also concluded that the Egyptian takeover of posts had deprived UNEF of its ability to function as an effective buffer.[6] He ordered an orderly withdrawal, with the first troops departing the area on 29 May and the evacuation completed on 17 June.[5] The decision to terminate the deployment, the departure of the first troops, and completion of repatriation were therefore separate stages in the force’s closure.[5]

After UNEF’s withdrawal, the Gulf of Aqaba was closed to Israeli shipping.[17] The force’s removal and the closure of the waterway preceded the outbreak of hostilities between Israel and Egypt, Jordan, and Syria on 5 June 1967.[7][17] Fifteen UNEF personnel—fourteen Indian and one Brazilian—who were still in Gaza awaiting repatriation were killed amid the fighting that began that day.[8] The withdrawal thus continued into the war, ending with the completion of the evacuation on 17 June.[5]

Security Council Resolution 340, adopted on 25 October 1973 following the Yom Kippur War, established UNEF II to supervise the Egyptian-Israeli ceasefire.[6][18] The resolution called for a ceasefire, the withdrawal of forces to their 22 October positions, and the deployment of UN observers and peacekeepers to monitor compliance.[18] It was adopted by 14 votes to none, with no abstentions.[18] Security Council resolutions 340 and 341 supplied the basis for the new force, in contrast to UNEF I’s establishment through the General Assembly.[6]

UNEF II was stationed initially in the Suez Canal area and later in Sinai, with headquarters in Ismailia.[6] Its commander chaired the Egyptian-Israeli military disengagement negotiations.[6] Following the U.S.-brokered disengagement agreements of January 1974 and September 1975, the force supervised the redeployment of Egyptian and Israeli troops and controlled the buffer zones created under those agreements.[6] Its work therefore encompassed both ceasefire supervision and implementation of the arrangements separating the two armies.[6]

The force was initially authorized at 7,000 troops.[6] After several countries withdrew their units in late 1974, its strength stabilized at approximately 4,000, with contingents from Sweden, Indonesia, Ghana, Senegal, and Finland, all nonpermanent members of the Security Council.[6] Troops from other countries, including Canada and Ireland, also rotated through the operation.[6] Egyptian and Israeli officers were attached to UNEF II and helped conduct monitoring activities, providing direct participation by the two parties in its field work.[6]

UNEF II remained in operation from October 1973 until July 1979.[19] Its mandate was last extended to 24 July 1979, and the Security Council did not renew it beyond that date.[20] The end of the force followed the conclusion of the Egypt-Israel peace treaty, rather than an Egyptian demand to remove it of the kind that had ended UNEF I.[20][5]

A Soviet veto prevented extension of UNEF II’s mandate after the 1979 Egypt-Israel peace treaty, and the Security Council supplied no alternative mechanism.[6][19] The force expired in July 1979, leaving the treaty’s monitoring arrangements to be addressed outside the continuation of that UN deployment.[6] The United States subsequently took the lead in creating the non-UN Multinational Force and Observers.[6]

Israel and Egypt formulated a protocol calling for the Multinational Force and Observers, signed in 1981.[19] That arrangement followed UNEF II’s supervision of the ceasefire and disengagement agreements but did not preserve UNEF’s institutional form as a United Nations force.[6][19] The sequence connected the end of the emergency deployment with a new multinational mechanism established after the bilateral peace treaty.[19]

The two UNEF deployments had consequently ended under different circumstances: the first through Egypt’s withdrawal of consent in May 1967, followed by evacuation through June, and the second through the expiration of its Security Council mandate after the peace treaty in July 1979.[5][20] Their respective endings reflected different operational and institutional conditions even though both forces had served between Egyptian and Israeli troops.[6]

UNEF I established a form of armed peacekeeping based on consent, international contingents, separation of forces, and restricted use of weapons rather than military enforcement.[2] Its establishment provided a means to supervise the cessation of hostilities and foreign withdrawal during the Suez Crisis without creating a force authorized to compel a withdrawal.[2] Its subsequent patrols and buffer positions extended the operation beyond that initial emergency into a continuing border presence.[4][6]

The force’s operational record included the prolonged quiet documented in 1957–1958, withdrawal supervision, mine clearance, road repair, prisoner exchanges, and observation from fixed posts, mobile patrols, and the air.[4][8] These activities accompanied its more visible role of standing between the Egyptian and Israeli armies.[6] UNEF II later applied ceasefire monitoring and buffer-zone supervision to the disengagement agreements reached after the Yom Kippur War.[6]

The relationship between peacekeeping and navigational security remained central to assessments of UNEF I.[15] Its presence at Sharm el-Sheikh helped safeguard Israeli passage through the Straits of Tiran, but the Gulf of Aqaba was closed to Israeli shipping after the force’s withdrawal.[6][17] In Who Will Keep the Peace?, the authors argue that UNEF could not guarantee passage through the Suez Canal or Gulf of Aqaba because its mandate rested on General Assembly resolutions and its Egyptian deployment depended on Egypt’s consent.[21]

The institutional distinction between the deployments was also substantial: the General Assembly created UNEF I, whereas the Security Council established UNEF II.[10][6] The first operated under arrangements requiring the host government’s continuing cooperation; the second supervised ceasefire and disengagement measures until the Council ceased renewing its mandate.[5][20] Together, their histories encompass withdrawal supervision, long-term border monitoring, implementation of disengagement agreements, and eventual replacement by a non-UN mechanism after the Egypt-Israel peace treaty.[6][19]

The Soviet Union disputed UNEF I’s constitutional basis, arguing that its establishment by the General Assembly intruded on the Security Council’s exclusive responsibilities.[22] The United States maintained that it was a consensual, non-enforcement recommendation following a Security Council referral and cited the International Court of Justice’s finding that the Assembly had properly authorized UNEF.[22]

The 1967 withdrawal generated a separate disagreement over consent and consultation.[23] U Thant maintained that Egypt could withdraw consent and that UNEF could not remain without it; U.S. and Israeli officials argued that earlier understandings required consultation and further UN consideration before a final decision.[23] Abba Eban objected that withdrawal breached the 1957 understandings and maintained that only the General Assembly could decide on evacuation.[17] The Advisory Committee was consulted but did not request that the Assembly convene.[5]

Interpretation of the 1956 aide-mémoire was part of this dispute.[24] Hammarskjöld’s private 1957 memorandum held that Egypt should not withdraw consent before UNEF completed its task, while acknowledging Egypt’s sovereign right to request withdrawal.[24] Thant’s 1967 report treated that memorandum as unofficial and emphasized the continuing requirement of Egyptian consent.[24] In Who Will Keep the Peace?, the authors cite scholar N. D. White’s argument that remaining after consent was withdrawn would have changed UNEF from peacekeeping toward peace enforcement.[21]