Israel has ordered the withdrawal of the residency permit of Jonathan Whittall, Head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Israel. Juliette Touma, spokesperson of UNRWA in Amman, says the step fits a pattern of Israel denying visas for humanitarian workers.

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Israel and Iran have agreed a ceasefire after a twelve day conflict. Meanwhile, Israel strikes in Gaza continue with the humanitarian crisis deepening.

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Israel's foreign ministry has revoked the permit of a United Nations official, continuing a pattern of restricting visas and access for humanitarian workers in the region. Juliet Tuma, Director of Communications for UNRWA, stated that several UN staff have faced difficulties obtaining visas and that these restrictions have complicated the delivery of humanitarian aid to communities in Gaza and the West Bank.

Tuma noted that the relationship between UNRWA and Israeli authorities has deteriorated, with limited contact and an embargo on official meetings. She highlighted the challenges faced by local UN staff, including exhaustion and lack of resources, and emphasized the reliance on locally recruited personnel to maintain operations. The restrictions have made humanitarian work in the Palestinian territories increasingly difficult, despite previous cooperation between UNRWA and Israel.

Israel FM orders withdrawal of UN official's permit

And, for more on this, I am joined now by Juliet Tuma, UNRWA Director of Communications, who joins us today from Amman. Welcome, Juliet. Now, first, I'd like to ask you to respond to these accusations by the Israeli Foreign Minister. Very good to see you, Luca. I mean, while our colleague from OCHA was the last to be refused a visa, he's certainly not the first, and it looks like there is a pattern of not giving several of us humanitarians visas to go and serve the communities in the Gaza Strip and in the West Bank. What diplomatic efforts have there been to de-escalate tensions between the UN and Israeli authorities? We are a humanitarian organization, so our job is to deliver humanitarian aid. Our job is also to speak to what is happening to the communities that we are serving, and this is what several of us have been doing in an effort to put an end to the carnage in a balanced way, calling on all parties to the conflict to do what they needed to do, reach an agreement, come finally to a ceasefire, open the gates of Gaza, release the hostages. This is what we've been doing, and we hope that there will be an agreement soon and that all these elements will be addressed. But I don't know if you can give us a little more detail, maybe, about the conversations that are happening behind the scenes in order to improve the relationship between the UN and Israel. That I don't have, Nicole, because you see, UNRWA has been banned by the Israeli authorities, and that also includes an embargo on their contact with us. And so they are not contacting us, they're not giving us visas, we're not being invited to meetings, and we do hope that UNRWA is allowed back into the occupied Palestinian territory, including to provide humanitarian assistance. Our staff called us this morning to say that their colleagues were fainting at their desks while on duty because they are starving and exhausted. Give our viewers a sense of how the restrictions on visas, movement, and supplies have been affecting the UN's ability to perform its tasks in all the Palestinian territories. Yeah, the humanitarian operation has been made totally unnecessarily complex and cumbersome through these bureaucratic procedures that were added as the war went by, and it's quite unusual for the State of Israel, because previously to the war, we've had a very good humanitarian access, and at UNRWA as well, we've had very good cooperation and relationship with the government of Israel. We've certainly seen it in other parts of the world where we serve in the UN, in particular among authoritarian regimes or countries. But this is, I would say, a new phenomenon and a new practice, and it's not new. This started early on. The first happened in December 2023, and our head, Under-Secretary General Filippo Lazzarini, the head of UNRWA, was denied entry to Gaza already back in March 24. What's the UN's contingency plan if these restrictions were to continue or even escalate further? Look, like it is wherever we operate around the world in humanitarian settings, we have the vast majority of our staff are locally recruited staff. So we have a fantastic number of staff who are holding the fort for us at UNRWA. They're the ones who have been doing the heavy lifting in a place like Gaza and also in the West Bank. Our role is to go there and support them in their heavy duty work. And quite frankly, we are very worried about not just their state of mind, but also physically, because they themselves, who are supposed to be caretakers, they need care themselves. That's Julia Tuma, UNRWA Director of Communications. Thank you so much for your time.

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Israel FM orders withdrawal of UN official's permit

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