United Nations Peacekeeping started in 1948 when the United Nations Security Council authorised the deployment of UN unarmed military observers to the Middle East in order to monitor the armistice agreement that was signed between Israel and its Arab neighbours in the wake of the Arab-Israeli War. This operation was called the United Nations Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO) and is still in operation today. With the passage of resolution 73 (1949) by the Security Council in August 1949, UNTSO was given the task of fulfilling four Armistice Agreements between the state of Israel and the Arab states which had participated in the war. Thus, UNTSO's operations were spread through five states in the region—Israel, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and the Syrian Arab Republic.