Israel has refused to renew the visa of a senior United Nations official who oversees humanitarian affairs in Gaza and the occupied West Bank, the country’s foreign minister said on Sunday, further straining the already tense ties between the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the organization.
Jonathan Whittall, the acting head of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Jerusalem, which plays a major role in managing the entry of desperately needed aid into territory, will not be allowed to continue working in Israel, Gideon Saar, the minister, wrote on social media.
Mr. Saar cited what he called Mr. Whittall’s “biased and hostile conduct against Israel” as the grounds for the decision. Andrea De Domenico, Mr. Whittall’s predecessor, also had to leave Israel when the country’s previous foreign minister refused to allow him to continue working there.
The Israeli authorities had indicated that Mr. Whittall’s visa would not be extended beyond August, according to the U.N. agency known as OCHA. It said the decision had come after remarks that he had made about Gazans being killed while trying to get food at aid distribution sites.
“Speaking about conditions we see on the ground is a core element of OCHA’s mandate,” the agency said in a statement in response to the decision not to renew Mr. Whittall’s visa. “Attempts to silence us are not new, but threats of reduced access to the civilians we’re trying to serve are intensifying.”
On Sunday, Israeli troops killed and wounded dozens of Palestinians after opening fire near a border crossing as U.N. aid trucks entered the territory, according to the Gaza health ministry.
The United Nations has strongly criticized the devastating humanitarian impact of the nearly two-year Israeli war against Hamas in Gaza. The war was set off by the Hamas-led attack Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, which the Israeli authorities said killed roughly 1,200 people saw the taking of about 200 people hostage.
The subsequent Israeli military campaign has killed more than 57,000 people in Gaza, according to the health ministry there. The ministry does not distinguish between civilians and combatants, and hospital workers. Its tolls include thousands of children
A vast majority of Gazans have been displaced and now face a hunger crisis, with the World Food Program saying that nearly one in three are not eating for days at a time because they had limited access to food.
Mr. Whittall had been a frequent critic of Israeli policies on aid, particularly an Israeli-backed relief effort run by the private and contentious Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. A series of shootings near the foundations’ aid sites have caused hundreds of deaths, as desperate Palestinians have sought aid.
“What we are seeing is carnage. It is weaponized hunger,” Mr. Whittall said in June. “It is forced displacement. It’s a death sentence for people just trying to survive.”