Turkish president slams Israel over Gaza offensive, urges global action

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Friday strongly condemned Israel’s relentless military attacks in Gaza, accusing the Israeli government of committing indiscriminate massacres against Palestinians, and also criticized the international community’s silence.

“In a state of utter madness, the Israeli government is massacring Palestinians without any distinctions,” Erdogan said during a meeting of a group of parliaments in support of Palestine in Istanbul, Türkiye, referring to the high Gaza death toll of women and children, as well as doctors and foreign and local aid workers.

He said they have gathered to give voice to Palestine, which has been the cradle of many civilizations and home to many prophets throughout history, adding that today they are united not only to support a land and its people but also to defend justice, peace, and resistance.

Expressing his hope that the meeting and the decisions it takes will benefit Palestine, Erdogan extended his special thanks to all the parliamentarians who see the Palestinian cause as their own and support it.

“Alongside all this, the Palestinian cause is, at its core, a struggle to be human and to remain human. It is a matter not only for Muslims but for every person of conscience. Surely, this cause goes beyond politics – it is a matter of conscience,” he said.

For months, the “global media and human rights advocates have stood by in silence” while journalists and children have been killed, he added.

“More than 7% of the population (of Gaza) has either been killed or maimed. A total of 212 journalists, who were working to report the truth from the ground, have been executed. Just the other day, a female journalist was martyred along with her 10 family members. Hundreds of doctors, nurses, and healthcare workers were targeted by bullets. Aid workers were killed. Babies died right before our eyes due to lack of medicine, water, and food.

“We are faced with a group so devoid of humanity that they celebrated their child's birthday by killing Palestinian children. Schools, churches, mosques, and universities were bombed. Nearly 80% of buildings in Gaza have been destroyed. Gaza has been devastated to the point where not a single stone is left standing. We are talking about a massive pile of debris exceeding 50 million tons,” he added.

Western ‘double standards’

Accusing Western countries of having double standards, Erdogan said: “In the slightest incident, they are quick to impose sanctions. But I ask, where are they against Israel?”

"Where is international law, where is the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, where are the structures, organizations, and institutions that raise their voices and have budgets of billions of dollars? Western states that quickly resort to the weapon of embargo in the smallest of incidents—where are they in the face of Israel?

“Where is the BBC, where is CNN, and where are the others? While humanity is being killed in Gaza, while children, babies, and women burn to death, while journalists are executed, does the world see this? A global order that does not stand with the oppressed is doomed to be the toy of the tyrants. Today, the world has become a prisoner of an order that remains silent in the face of tyranny and even applauds the oppression,” he further said.

From the UN to the EU, many institutions and organizations have given a poor account of themselves in Gaza, at the cost of trampling on the very principles they claim to defend, Erdogan said.

The president said nearly 60,000 Palestinians had been “brutally killed” since Oct. 7, 2023, most of them women and children, and warned that “any proposal that seeks to expel Palestinians from the land they have lived on for thousands of years holds no value for us.”

Erdogan underlined the Palestinian cause is “a struggle for dignity” and a stand for “humanity, peace, and justice,” urging the society that “suffered genocide 75 years ago” to raise its voice and tell its leaders to “stop,” referring to the Nazi Holocaust of Jews.

"The struggle of our brothers and sisters in Gaza is no different from the independence struggle our nation waged against the invaders a century ago,” he added.

The Turkish leader accused those staying silent on the deaths in Gaza of attempting to “normalize genocide” by labeling the Palestinian resistance as "terrorism."

“Since Oct. 7, 2023, our brothers and sisters in Gaza and Palestine have been subjected to one of the greatest acts of banditry of the past century,” Erdogan said.

Erdogan said Türkiye has continued its humanitarian aid to Palestinians without interruption.

“Thankfully, with the support of neighboring countries, we have delivered over 101,000 tons of humanitarian aid to Gaza. We thank them once again for their support. We will continue to extend our helping hand to Gaza in the days ahead,” he said.

Since March 2, Erdogan said, Israel has once again revealed its ugly face by blocking aid to Gaza and the Netanyahu government is trying to destroy Palestinians through starvation, thirst, and lack of medicine.

Türkiye gives great importance on the genocide case filed against Israel in the International Court of Justice as “every crime left unpunished only emboldens the perperator,” said Erdogan, expressing his hope of seeing the Israeli premier and “the murder gang” to be held accountable for their crimes.

“Fanatic, genocidal Israelis are provoking and inciting Muslims by entering Al-Aqsa Mosque under the protection of armed security officers. Let me make this clear once again: The Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock, located in the Haram al-Sharif, with its 144 dunams of land, exclusively belong to Muslims and are one entity. We will not allow anyone to undermine this. Al-Aqsa is our red line, and it will remain so, God willing, for eternity,” he added.

Erdogan said that there is no alternative to the two-state solution of the Palestine-Israel conflict, adding that Ankara will continue its struggle tirelessly and without hesitation until an independent, sovereign, and territorially unified state of Palestine is established, based on the 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital.

“Gaza belongs to the people of Gaza. Palestine belongs to the Palestinian people. Palestine is for the Palestinians. As millions of Palestinian refugees wait to return to the homes where they have kept their keys, we can never tolerate new migrations or displacements," he said.

"We will provide all the support we can for our Palestinian brothers and sisters to live freely in their homeland and in peace with other faiths. Even if we stand alone, we will continue to defend the Palestinian cause."