Israel: Tedros Is Lying About W.H.O. Being Told to Empty Gaza Warehouse

The government of Israel accused World Health Organization (W.H.O.) leader Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus of lying on Monday about a claim that Israeli officials had asked his U.N. agency to empty a warehouse in southern Gaza.

The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) began an operation in southern Gaza this weekend, following similar operations in the north, to eradicate the genocidal terrorist organization Hamas following the unprecedented slaughter of over 1,200 people on October 7. The United Nations, including Tedros’s W.H.O., has been hesitant to condemn Hamas and has repeatedly condemned Israel for attempting to prevent a repeat of the atrocities of October 7, though Hamas leaders have repeatedly threatened to conduct similar attacks.

“I can promise that a war of liberation is coming, not just another October 7,” Hamas Political Bureau officer Osama Hamdan declared last week.

Tedros claimed on Monday that his agency “received notification” to evacuate a facility in Gaza, a territory controlled by Hamas.

“Today, @WHO received notification from the Israel Defense Forces that we should remove our supplies from our medical warehouse in southern Gaza within 24 hours, as ground operations will put it beyond use,” Tedros wrote on Twitter. “We appeal to #Israel to withdraw the order, and take every possible measure to protect civilians and civilian infrastructure, including hospitals and humanitarian facilities.”

The Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), the Israeli government agency that leads efforts involving Palestinian civilians, denied that the IDF had issued such a message to the W.H.O.

“The truth is that we didn’t ask you to evacuate the warehouses and we also made it clear [and in writing] to the relevant UN representatives,” COGAT responded via its official Twitter account, adding, “From a UN official we would expect, at least, to be more accurate.”

The Qatari outlet Al Jazeera reported, from Gaza that it appeared that the W.H.O. did “start moving stuff out of the warehouse” in question, but did not offer any evidence backing Tedros’s claims, or refuting COGAT’s statement.

Under the leadership of Tedros, the first W.H.O. director-general to not possess a medical doctorate, the agency has faced years of controversy and accusations of dishonesty, particularly regarding the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic. Tedros’s W.H.O. initially claimed that evidence suggested the highly contagious Wuhan coronavirus was not capable of “human-to-human transmission” – about a month after the Taiwanese government warned the agency of the spread of infectious disease in China.

A bombshell report in the German newspaper Der Spiegel, which Tedros denied, also accused the W.H.O. of delaying the declaration of a pandemic at the personal behest of genocidal Chinese dictator Xi Jinping.

The W.H.O., as well as the rest of the United Nations network of agencies, has been harshly critical of Israel with minimal condemnation for Hamas in the aftermath of the October 7 attacks. On that day, terrorists invaded Israel, going door-to-door and massacring entire families, engaging in widespread gang rape, torturing and killing children, and abducting about 250 people.

Tedros himself has demanded a “ceasefire and unfettered humanitarian access” to Hamas territory, essentially rejecting Israel’s right to respond to the October 7 atrocities and prevent another similar scenario. The W.H.O. has particularly opposed IDF operations to identify and neutralize terrorist operation hubs that Hamas has hidden inside Gaza’s hospitals, where Israel has uncovered vast tunnel networks used to store weapons and plan attacks.

U.N. Special Rapporteur for Palestinian Human Rights Francesca Albanese, a top official on the issue, has spent much of the past two months condemning Israel, claiming the country has no right to defend its people. Prior to being appointed to the role, Albanese had enthusiastically condemned Israel and had a history of antisemitism, including statements condemning “the Jewish lobby” and “Israel’s greed.” Albanese attended a Hamas conference in 2022 where she defended the terrorist group’s “right to resist.”

The United Nations Security Council, the most powerful body in the U.N. network, has failed to condemn Hamas for its atrocities on October 7. Instead, after over a month of failed attempts to pass a resolution addressing the situation, it finally passed one in mid-November demanding Israel stop its counteroperations against Hamas.

The United Nations women’s rights body, U.N. Women, did not comment on the terrorist attack until early December, saying that it “deeply regret[ted]” Israel’s attempts to prevent a repeat of the mass rape, torture, and killing of women that Hamas perpetrated. The statement ultimately did state that the agency “unequivocally condemn[ed]” Hamas’s attack.

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