‘Guilt had already been assigned’ – WHO began using 'famine' against Israel just weeks after Oct 7, without evidence

A World Health Organization (WHO) representative revealed that a group of international officials agreed to accuse Israel of causing famine in Gaza just weeks after the war began following Hamas' Oct. 7 attacks — a move he said was intended to create political pressure.

Dr. Michel Thieren, the WHO's representative to Israel, said that international officials met in December 2023 for a multilateral governance meeting about Gaza in Geneva, Switzerland, where they raised the need to “scientifically” demonstrate a famine in Gaza. 

In an appearance on the Mosaïque podcast last week, Thieren said the officials discussed “how to use the term for communication and political pressure on Israel.” 

“The narrative of this war is tainted by antisemitism.”

Dr. Michel Thieren, the WHO representative in Israel and a non-Jew, revealed that just weeks after October 7, WHO officials attended a meeting in Geneva where they were already discussing how to “use the word famine to… pic.twitter.com/ie0Wa7wh4J

— Hen Mazzig (@HenMazzig) October 28, 2025

“At the very end of the meeting – I won’t say exactly where, and it wasn’t necessarily at the WHO, rest assured – there was a gathering of experts who asked the question quite forcefully,” Thieren shared. “I was there, and I was absolutely stunned. What they were saying, essentially, was that one should try to find a term that could be used to exert pressure. So yes, I was very shocked by that.” 

Thieren said what shocked him the most was that Israel was already being presumed guilty before any investigation. 

“So when these people were saying it would be necessary to demonstrate famine, the guilt had already been assigned,” he noted. “When we talk about genocide, the WHO never went there; others did – but very early, these people pronounced these two terms [genocide and famine], they were thrown out right from the start. So the crimes were already predetermined, and then the organizations tried to demonstrate them. And for me, that is not normal at all.”

Unlike most of his colleagues, Thieren visited Israel in the aftermath of the Hamas massacres on Oct. 7, 2023, personally visiting Kibbutz Be’eri, Kfar Aza, and the site of the Nova Music Festival at Kibbutz Re'im. 

Having also visited the scenes of previous genocides in Rwanda and Srebrenica, he said, “For the third time in my life, I saw what a land of massacre looks like.”

“I could describe to you what a land of massacre is, but it’s that kind of landscape – very silent, echoing, muffled – as I say, frozen in a sort of Pompeii of murder. I’ve always felt that a land of massacre is not a land of war. I was in Syria: you see lands of war there. It’s not the same thing. A land of massacre is a land of massacre.” 

While Thieren refused to comment on the charge of genocide, he alluded to the world of medicine.

“You know, in medicine, when we learn the treatment of a disease, if the treatment is described in 10 pages, it means there is no treatment. A treatment is three lines: you take this, it works, and it kills the disease. So the bigger the reports, the more suspicious they are.”

He compared this to a 24-page report on the Rwanda genocide, which included only one paragraph about the evidence for the genocide. 

Thieren noted that the length of some of the reports, with 72 pages of “justification,” is not an accurate indication of the charges. 

The WHO representative also said that many of the reports about Israel are “tinged with antisemitism.” 

He said the problem with the narrative around Israel is “not only that it’s biased, but that there is often a kind of enjoyment” in telling the story, adding, “We describe, we announce, we tell the story of this war with a certain pleasure.” 

“And that’s where, for me, all these accounts – wherever they come from – are tinged with antisemitism,” he noted.