Jonathan Whittall, who leads the Israeli operations of OCHA—the U.N.'s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs—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.
Whittall maintains residence in Jerusalem while splitting duties between Jerusalem and Gaza. The decision ensures he will not be able to continue his activities in Israel beyond the end of August.
“There must be a limit,” Sa’ar stated. “Following biased and hostile conduct against Israel, which distorted reality, presented false reports, slandered Israel and even violated the U.N.'s own rules regarding neutrality, and in accordance with the professional recommendation given, I have instructed not to extend the residency permit of the head of the OCHA office in Israel, Jonathan Whittall.”
“Whoever spreads lies about Israel - Israel will not work with him,” Jerusalem’s top diplomat added.
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, sources at the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem say.
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.
Most recently, Whittall, who frequently visits Gaza, publicly asserted 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 U.N. behavioral standards that mandate staff neutrality and require unbiased professional conduct.
Originally published by Israel Hayom.
