The UN's food agency just fired a staffer for reporting on Gaza hunger
1 hour ago · 6 October 2026Share
FAO's headquarters in Rome, in Via delle Terme di Caracalla. File photo. Scopritore · CC BY-SA 3.0
Benjamin Davis just lost his job at the UN's food agency.
He'd been there 26 years.
He says it's because he spoke up about hunger in Gaza.
So let's get into it.
Davis ran the Rural Transformation and Gender Equality Division at the Food and Agriculture Organization, the FAO.
He got a letter on 1 July. It said his contract, already extended once, would not be extended again.
His last day in Rome was 30 September.
The letter came from Qu Dongyu, the FAO's Director-General. It said he was no longer confident Davis could do his job the way a senior international civil servant should.
Davis says that's about impartiality. And leadership.
But he says the real reason is different.
Here's what happened. Back in May last year, his team published a brief. It looked at food availability in Gaza and what international humanitarian law says about it.
The brief said conditions in Gaza were a gross violation of the right to food. And an unlawful blocking of aid.
A few weeks later, it got taken down. FAO's own legal office said the brief had gone beyond its mandate.
Then in September last year, his team ran a seminar on Gaza hunger.
Israel's mission to the FAO complained about it.
A month after that, a woman who said she was Israel's permanent representative to the FAO showed up at a weekly vigil. Staff hold it every week for people killed in Gaza.
She photographed the staff there. When someone asked her to stop, she told FAO security she was being harassed.
And those vigils are still happening. Every week since May last year. Coordinated with FAO's own security.
Hundreds of staff used to show up. Now it's thirty to forty most weeks.
So here's the twist. Davis says FAO management approved all of it. The brief. The seminar. The vigils.
Nobody ever told him any of it broke the code of conduct.
He says he was disciplined for work his own employer signed off on.
The rest of this story is for members.
A U.S. Air Force pararescueman uses a forklift to transport bundles of Jordanian humanitarian aid onto a U.S. Air Force HC-130J Combat King II destined for an airdrop over Gaza, at an undisclosed location within the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility, March 16, 2024. File photo.U.S. Air Force AFCENT by Staff Sgt. Caleb Roland · Public domain
Davis says quote "disciplined without due process for speaking up" about the right to food.
That's a 26-year FAO official saying the agency punished him for doing the job it already approved.
Three days before his last day, Qu Dongyu spoke at an FAO forestry event in Rome.
Davis and other staff think the remarks were about him.
Qu Dongyu says quote "we are not going to allow you to play the game here of human rights."
He told staff that anyone who wants to work on human rights should go to the UN's dedicated agency in Geneva. He said he'd fired people before for playing what he called political games. And said he'd fire more.
So that's the head of a UN agency telling his own staff, on the record, that raising human rights can get you fired.
FAO has not responded to requests for comment from multiple outlets. Not on Davis's account. Not on Qu Dongyu's remarks.
And here's what it hasn't done either. It hasn't disputed a single date, the brief, the seminar, the vigils, or the complaint from Israel.
The only disagreement, as far as anyone has said, is over whether Davis's work was legitimate reporting on hunger, or political advocacy that broke the impartiality rules.
Davis points back to FAO's own rules. UN staff can express political views, he says, as long as it doesn't damage their work or the organisation.
And there's this. The UN-backed food security system confirmed famine in Gaza in August last year. That's the same hunger crisis his team wrote about a year before that.
When Davis walked out of the building in Rome, staff gathered and applauded him.
He's filed a formal appeal through FAO's internal process. He says it could go all the way to the UN Administrative Tribunal, which can award damages.
But he says he filed it mostly on principle. He wants reinstatement. He wants the accusations dropped. Not money.
FAO's own slogan is "Leave no one behind."
So what don't we know?
How many other staff Qu Dongyu plans to fire. He said there'd be more.
Whether Davis's appeal goes anywhere.
And whether FAO will ever answer his specific claims, instead of just talking about impartiality in general.
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