A former senior UN food agency official has alleged he was fired last week for his work highlighting hunger in Gaza, and has launched an appeal against his dismissal. Benjamin Davis said the leadership of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) had refused to renew his contract as director of its rural transformation and gender equality division because his team had published a brief on hunger in Gaza and held a seminar on the subject last year, and because he taken part in weekly “moment of silence” vigils on FAO grounds for those killed. The seminar on hunger in Gaza last September triggered a complaint from the Israeli mission to the FAO, which also sent a diplomat to take pictures of staff taking part a moment of silence gathering last October, according to a FAO staff report filed at the time.
Davis, 62 and a Spanish-American dual citizen, left the FAO last week after 26 years of service. Video of the event shows FAO staff standing and applauding him as he left the Rome headquarters for the last time. If you want to take care [of human rights], go there.” “Thats why [when] some senior members play political games here, I fire him,” he said, suggesting that Davis had violated staff regulations.
I’m going to use my last year … to fire more if they’re against the law.” Davis said he and fellow FAO staff members had been stunned by Qu’s remarks. I think that really shocked people because it undermined the foundations of why we’re here basically, or why FAO is part of the United Nations and why the United Nations exists,” he said. The letter cited paragraphs in the official code of conduct for international civil servants regarding “honesty, truthfulness, impartiality and incorruptibility” and limits on public expression of personal views on “controversial matters”.
In his written response, Davis said that approach taken by FAO leadership was “simply wrong”. Being true to our mandate calls for a frank and open discussion around starvation, famine, and genocide in Palestine and elsewhere.” Davis said that FAO leadership had previously criticised him for a briefing paper published by his team in May last year describing the level of hunger in Gaza and setting it in the context of international humanitarian law. It was removed from the FAO website a few weeks later on the orders of its leadership.
Davis led a seminar on the same subject in September 2025, which led to a complaint from the Israeli mission to the FAO and other Rome-based international agencies. Davis said he had also been criticised for taking part in moment of silence gatherings held by concerned staff in the FAO car park every Thursday, in remembrance of those in Gaza who had died of hunger. There was an altercation there on 23 October when a woman identifying herself as an Israeli diplomat appeared and took photographs of those attending.
On being told she could not take photographs, the woman complained to FAO security that she was being harassed, the report said. The Israeli embassy in Rome said it had no comment on the report. Davis said that the Gaza briefing paper, the associated seminar, and the weekly moments of silence had all been approved by FAO management, and he had not been told at the time that they represented violations of the code of conduct.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
