Professor Anne Bayefsky, the Director of the Touro Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust and President of the Human Rights Voices organization, spoke with Arutz Sheva - Israel National News about Israeli Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon's announcement yesterday that Israel would take steps against the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs' (OCHA)."
Prof. Bayefsky stated: "The truth is that OCHA is a protection racket for Palestinian terrorists. It is the lead UN humanitarian agency that, in practice, defeats the goal of humanitarianism. In many ways, OCHA controls the information flow from Gaza, which it has systematically manipulated and falsified to demonize the Jewish state. OCHA has assumed the role of a Hamas PR agent, and the gullible around the world are eating it up - while the Jewish hostages starve."
"Where is OCHA when it comes to locating and delivering humanitarian aid and medical supplies to the hostages?" she wondered. "And instead of facilitating the evacuation of Palestinian civilians from combat zones, OCHA is standing in the way of their attempts to leave. It's a diabolical scheme of human shielding that prolongs the war and is the inverse of humanitarian aid."
"OCHA's behavior is an enormous scandal that has become a mushroom cloud hanging over the entire region. Shame on all those states that keep OCHA in the business of hurting instead of healing," Prof. Bayefsky said.
During a Security Council meeting on the situation in the Middle East yesterday (Wednesday), Amb. Danon stated that "OCHA has long ceased to be a humanitarian body. It is a Hamas propaganda arm that operates from within UN institutions, and uses false data and inflammatory discourse to harm Israel."
Danon also stated that hundreds of OCHA's employees will undergo security screening and the residence permits of senior employees will not be renewed: "The head of the OCHA branch in Judea and Samaria, Jonathan Whittall, will be required to leave Israel by the end of the month. We will no longer allow anti-Israel activity under the guise of humanitarianism," he said.