U.N. spokespeople are deflecting questions about a Drop Site News investigation of alleged spying by staffer Yahav Lichner in 2014 and 2015, Dulcie Leimbach and Damilola Banjo report.
Ron Prosor, at right, Israel’s U.N. ambassador at the time, in Israel in February 2012 with U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. (UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe)
By Dulcie Leimbach and Damilola Banjo
PassBlue
Two weeks since news broke that an Israeli mole working inside the United Nations was leaking confidential information years ago to Israeli diplomats, the organization has released few facts about the allegations against Yahav Lichner. That means there are more questions than answers right now.
A Drop Site News investigation, published on Aug. 4, revealed that Lichner, a former Israeli diplomat, had from 2014 to 2015 repeatedly leaked top-secret information — some material marked by the U.N. Secretariat as “strictly confidential” — from his perch inside the U.N. Population Fund to Ron Prosor, the Israeli ambassador to the U.N. at the time, and other Israeli diplomats.
[Drop Site noted that some of the leaks occurred “at a time when Israel was facing an independent commission inquiry by the U.N. Human Rights Council over its conduct during the 2014 military offensive against the Gaza Strip.”]
It is unclear if Lichner’s spying continued as he held other posts in the U.N. system over the last decade. The rules governing U.N. staff explicitly restrict them from passing information obtained through their positions to governments, including their own countries, or other outside parties.
Despite a follow-up article by PassBlue about the news, most of the circumstances around Lichner’s alleged spying remain a secret, as various U.N. spokespeople deflect questions about him.
Palestinians collect their belongings from under the rubble of a residential tower, which witnesses said was destroyed by an Israeli air strike in Gaza City on Aug. 24, 2014. (UN Photo/Shareef Sarhan)
Lichner, 46, was working for Unicef when it was reported that he had slipped U.N. documents and other private information of top U.N. officials to Israeli officials. That included details about Ban Ki-moon, the secretary-general at the time.
Lichner was put on administrative leave by Unicef soon after Aug. 4, but it is unclear whether he is being paid. The agency referred to him in a statement to PassBlue only as an “employee” and did not name him.
When questioned about the Lichner allegations, the U.N.’s deputy spokesperson, Farhan Haq, also called Lichner an “employee” and directed all questions to Unicef, which has revealed little, saying, “UNICEF is aware of serious allegations concerning an employee and is taking the appropriate action.”
Kurtis Cooper, media chief for the agency, also said: “UNICEF does not publicly discuss details of individual personnel, performance, or recruitment.”
Yet David Nyskohus, the chief of office for the Office of Internal Oversight Services, the U.N.’s internal investigative arm, told PassBlue that
“OIOS is assessing whether any United Nations Secretariat personnel may have been involved in the alleged disclosure of confidential information that has been reported in the media. OIOS is working with UNFPA and UNICEF to facilitate this assessment.”
Employment Snapshot
Yahav Lichner, second from right, while external relations specialist for the United Nations Population Fund, addressing a sustainable energy forum on June 4, 2014. (UN Photo/Rick Bajornas)
Lichner began his job in 2014 in external relations at the U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA), which focuses on women’s reproductive rights and health. He was hired through a competitive process, a spokesperson said for the agency.
He was seconded to Unicef in 2018 and officially “separated” from UNFPA in 2022 while he was with Unicef. By 2025, he was director of Unicef’s Washington office, a plum job, when he was put on leave this month.
Unicef had a presence in Washington before Lichner’s appointment, but the position of director appears to have been created in 2025. The agency’s initial role in the Capitol was relatively small and focused largely on managing relations with institutions like the World Bank.
Lichner was the first person to hold the title of director for the D.C. post, although Unicef has not clarified whether the post was publicly advertised or how Lichner was selected for it, including whether it was through a competitive procedure or an internal reassignment.
PassBlue could not find a public vacancy announcement for the post after searching Unicef’s careers site and several websites that archive U.N. job postings. Earlier Washington-based Unicef vacancies are publicly available, including positions advertised in 2023 and 2024, but PassBlue found no comparable listing for the director position Lichner assumed in 2025.
The Washington office acts as a leadership hub for Unicef’s partnerships with “the Governments of the United States, Canada and Israel, as well as for UNICEF’s partnership with International Financial Institutions,” according to the agency.
Lichner’s LinkedIn and X accounts were recently deleted.
Unicef is headed by Catherine Russell, an American who worked in the Biden administration. As executive director, Russell would likely have signed off on the promotion of Lichner to D.C.
Russell addressing a World Water Day event in March. (UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe)
IDF Tenure
Lichner was in the Israel Defense Forces from 2000 to 2006, when the compulsory conscription time for most males is two years and eight months.
During those six years, the second intifada took place, one of the most violent uprisings by Palestinians against Israel and that lasted five years. PassBlue was unable to confirm his rank when he left the military.
It also remains unclear whether Lichner went through a competitive hiring process when in 2024 he joined the team of Sigrid Kaag, a former Dutch politician and Unicef official from 2005-2010.
Kaag with reporters on May 28, 2025, after a Security Council meeting on the situation in the Middle East. (U.N. Photo/ Loey Felipe)
She was recommended by the Biden administration and appointed by U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres in December 2023 to take on a new role as senior humanitarian and reconstruction coordinator for Gaza, which was backed by the U.N. Security Council on Dec. 22, 2023. Lichner and others soon joined her new team.
The Council mandate was authorized to push Israel to allow more essential aid into Gaza amid severe restrictions imposed by the Israeli government in its war against Hamas. The mandate also stipulated that the coordinator was responsible for ensuring that the aid that got in was used for humanitarian purposes only.
The United Arab Emirates led the Council resolution (which was approved 13-0, with abstentions by Russia and the U.S.). As to aid, the text specifically called for
“urgent and extended humanitarian pauses and corridors throughout the Gaza Strip for a sufficient number of days to enable full, rapid, safe, and unhindered humanitarian access and to enable urgent rescue and recovery efforts.”
Additionally, it called for “the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages.” That call was eventually realized by early 2026.
The U.N. Security Council adopting Resolution 2720 on protecting civilians and enabling of immediate humanitarian assistance to Palestinians in Gaza, Dec. 22, 2023. (UN Photo/Loey Felipe)
Lichner’s role as an adviser for Kaag lasted approximately from January 2024 until September 2024, Kaag told PassBlue on Aug. 9, referring to it as a “secondment.” He worked from Jerusalem and New York City, while her overall office worked through “integrated teams” based in Amman, Jerusalem, Gaza and Cairo, in addition to New York City.
Kaag said “liaison was the mainstay” of Lichner’s role, likening it to other nationals who work, for example, in the Office of the U.N. Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process (UNSCO), including “Israelis and Palestinians,” she added.
The Gaza mandate ended in March 2025, but the mechanism continues to be handled by the U.N. Office for Project Services. Kaag is no longer affiliated with the U.N.
Whether Lichner was selected based on a vacancy announcement for the post and review of applicants or whether there was no vacancy posted and Kaag personally requested him for the position is not clear.
The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, or OCHA, led the Gaza mission, but the spokesperson, Eri Kaneko, did not answer PassBlue’s email about Lichner’s hiring.
Update, Aug. 19: Kaneko emailed PassBlue, after this story was first published, with the following information: “OCHA was designated as a service provider and provided administrative support to the Office of the Senior Humanitarian and Reconstruction Coordinator (for example, issuing contracts). Decision-making and managerial responsibilities, such as selection and recruitment decisions, rested with the Senior Coordinator. OCHA was asked to provide administrative support to facilitate their operations, so on selections and recruitments, we’d refer you to the Senior Coordinator.”
Kaag said the team was mostly comprised of U.N. staff “on secondments or (non) reimbursable loan, ranging from WHO, UNDP, WFP, OCHA and UNICEF.”
In a separate email, she said Lichner was hired on a P-5 contract through a nonreimbursable loan, given the nine-month initial time frame of the mission. At the U.N., “P-5” refers to a “professional” level rank, usually requiring 10 years of experience and internationally recruited.
Given Lichner’s connections as a former IDF member and having worked as a diplomat for the Israeli mission to the U.N. he could have been deemed helpful with obtaining permits from the Israeli government to enter Gaza for the coordinator job, a U.N. official who worked in the region told PassBlue.
Money for the Gaza Mission
A girl walks inside Gaza to get food in August 2024. (Jaber Jehad Badwan/ Wikimedia Commons/ CC BY-SA 4.0)
Financial support to Kaag and her team appears to have been donated by the U.A.E. and the Netherlands, among others. (Kaag is a former Dutch foreign trade/development minister, foreign minister and finance minister.)
A June 2024 U.N. update on the mechanism says that it received $11.7 million — $5.4 million from the Netherlands, $5 million from the U.A.E. and $1.3 million from Australia. The document identifies these amounts as funding for the “UN 2720 Mechanism.”
By September 2024, the U.N. was reporting the donor list as: Netherlands, $7.2 million; U.A.E., $5 million; Australia, $1.3 million; Denmark, $2 million; Estonia, $30,000; New Zealand, $1.2 million; Minderoo Foundation, $4 million.
The Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ appraisal of its contribution to the U.N. coordinator mechanism says the program included “the placement of Sigrid Kaag” and that its budget was principally for staff and equipment. The same document says that the program required $61 million overall, and that the Dutch contribution was being made to enable the mechanism to be created.
It is difficult to assess how effective the mechanism proved to be amid accusations by wide-ranging experts that the Israeli government used food as a “weapon of war” throughout much of the conflict in Gaza.
The ceasefire in the enclave from late January 2025 to March 2025 enabled aid flows to surge, but when the truce collapsed, Israel blocked food, fuel, medicine and other aid into Gaza.
Kaag told the Security Council at the time that the “entire population in Gaza is facing the risk of famine.”
Aid and other lifesaving supplies have been entering the enclave since the October 2025 ceasefire, albeit intermittently, as the agreement is regularly violated, mostly by the IDF.
Board of Peace
U.S. President Donald Trump, second from left, during a signing ceremony for the Board of Peace charter at the World Economic Forum on Jan. 22. (The White House/Wikimedia Commons/Public Domain)
Kaag is currently an unpaid executive board member of the Trump-led Board of Peace, one of the few women in the organization, which includes Trump’s adviser and a son-in-law, Jared Kushner; and Steve Witkoff, another Trump adviser.
[See: Jeffery Sachs: Trump’s UN Ploy]
The board was endorsed by a U.N. Security Council resolution in 2025 to back the U.S.-led Gaza peace plan, but it has yet to meet. Nickolay Mladenov, the board’s high representative, oversees governance of Gaza and the disarmament of Hamas, which has not proceeded.
[See: UN Security Council Gives US ‘Mandate’ Over Palestine]
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently rejected the Gaza peace plan, but Kushner, who met with Netanyahu this week, said that if Hamas didn’t disarm over the next 60 to 90 days it’ll show “they’re not genuine about peace” and it will give Israel cover to “go and finish the job.”
The board states that at a minimum under the peace plan, quantities of aid getting into Gaza
“will be consistent with what was included in the January 19, 2025, agreement regarding humanitarian aid, including rehabilitation of infrastructure (water, electricity, sewage), rehabilitation of hospitals and bakeries, and entry of necessary equipment to remove rubble and open roads.”
[See: Chris Hedges: Gaza’s Board of Pieces]
According to regular media briefings by the U.N. spokesperson, none of these goals has yet to be fully achieved. Fuel, for example, was recently restricted again by Israel into Gaza, leaving hospitals unable to function properly. Yet Resolution 2720 specifically “demands the provision of fuel to Gaza at levels that will meet requisite humanitarian needs.”
Dulcie Leimbach is a co-founder, with Barbara Crossette, of PassBlue. For PassBlue and other publications, Leimbach has reported from New York and overseas from West Africa (Burkina Faso and Mali) and from Europe (Scotland, Sicily, Vienna, Budapest, Kyiv, Armenia, Iceland, The Hague and Cyprus). She has provided commentary on the U.N. for BBC World Radio, ARD German TV and Radio, NHK’s English channel, Background Briefing with Ian Masters/KPFK Radio in Los Angeles and the Foreign Press Association.
Damilola Banjo is an award-winning staff reporter for PassBlue who has covered a wide range of topics, from Africa-centered stories to gender equality to U.N. peacekeeping and U.S.-U.N. relations. She has worked for WFAE, an NPR affiliate in Charlotte, N.C. Banjo has a master’s of science degree from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and an undergraduate degree from the University of Ibadan in Nigeria.
This article is from PassBlue.
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