Jonathan Whittall, who leads the Israeli operations of OCHA – the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, which is notorious for its antagonistic position toward Israel – will no longer be allowed to stay in Israel after Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar instructed officials to deny him with a new Israeli residency permit after the current one expires. The decision ensures Whittall would not be able to continue his activities in Israel beyond the end of August.
The OCHA office in Israel has systematically abused its humanitarian mandate to launch severe attacks against Israel, manipulate reporting on Gaza Strip developments, and disseminate misleading presentations to the international community that distort established facts and on-ground realities in Gaza.
Notable examples include OCHA director Tom Fletcher's false accusation that Israel would cause 14,000 infant deaths in Gaza within two days – a claim he subsequently retracted. Foreign Ministry sources indicate that OCHA staff routinely deliver skewed, agenda-driven reports that create defamatory portrayals of Israel unsupported by evidence – including inflated Gaza civilian casualty statistics that required later corrections and underreported humanitarian aid truck numbers that failed to reflect actual delivery volumes.
Most recently, Whittall, who maintains frequent access to Gaza, crossed acceptable boundaries by publicly asserting that Gaza contains "conditions created to kill." Whittall further declared, "What we are seeing is carnage. It is weaponized hunger. It is forced displacement. It's a death sentence for people just trying to survive.It appears to be the erasure of Palestinian life."
Foreign Ministry representatives emphasize that such inflammatory rhetoric against Israel represents both falsehood and distortion while violating UN behavioral standards that mandate staff neutrality and require unbiased professional conduct.
Whittall, who maintains residence in Jerusalem while splitting duties between Jerusalem and Gaza, will have to depart Israel within several weeks.
