Lieutenant General Odd Bull was a career officer in the Royal Norwegian Air Force who rose to the position of Chief of Air Staff. He is probably best known outside Norway for his role as Chief of Staff of the United Nations Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO) between 1963 and 1970, a period which coincided with the Six-Day War between Israel and its Arab neighbours. He wrote a memoir of his experiences during this time, which was published as War and Peace in the Middle East: The Experiences and Views of a U.N. Observer.
Odd Bull
United Nations Truce Supervision Organization
The United Nations Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO) is an organization founded on 29 May 1948 for peacekeeping in the Middle East. Established amidst the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, its primary task was initially to provide the military command structure to the peacekeeping forces in the Middle East to enable the peacekeepers to observe and maintain the ceasefire, and in assisting the parties to the Armistice Agreements in the supervision of the application and observance of the terms of those Agreements. The organization's structure and role has evolved over time as a result of the various conflicts in the region and at times UNTSO personnel have been used to rapidly deploy to other areas of the Middle East in support of other United Nations operations. The command structure of the UNTSO was maintained to cover the later peacekeeping organisations of the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) and the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) to which UNTSO continues to provide military observers.
UNTSO headquarters, Armon Hanatziv neighborhood, Jerusalem
A large crowd assembled outside the Dizengoff House to hear the declaration of Israel's independence, 14 May 1948
Thomas C. Wasson, US member of the Truce Commission, assassinated in Jerusalem, 22 May 1948
Count Folke Bernadotte, the United Nations Mediator for Palestine