June 14, 1947 United Nations Committee of Inquiry Arrives in Lydda Airport
“Arriving here today Chief Justice Emil Sanstroem of Sweden, Chairman of the United Nations Committee of Inquiry on Palestine, disclosed that the committee would tour the country ‘to get the background’ of the Palestine problem before starting its hearings. The committee members, representing eleven nations, will convene for the first time in Jerusalem probably on Monday.
Although the Palestine Arab Higher Committee is organizing a thorough boycott of the inquiry, Justice Sandstroem said that the inquiry delegates intended to visit the Arab as well as the Jewish districts of the Holy Land.
The Arab boycott of the committee began at the Lydda airfield where Justice Sandstroem, delegates and members of the Secretariat, arrived in a special Trans World Airlines plane from Cairo, Egypt. Not a single Arab Newspaper man was seen amid the crowd of correspondents and photographers at the air terminal.
Residents of the Arab town of Lydda, the first through which the inquiry committee motorcade passed this afternoon, watched the convoy of new cars with curiosity but made no demonstration of any kind.”
Source: New York Times, June 15, 1947