Israel will pay for the atrocities it has committed in the Gaza Strip for the past six months, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan told Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas in a phone call, Communications Director Fahrettin Altun said Friday.
Erdoğan assured Abbas Türkiye will continue standing firmly against Israel’s “barbaric attacks” on Gaza, according to Altun.
The war-stricken Gaza Strip has been under illegal Israeli blockade for 17 years now and months of a relentless Israeli attack, which has killed tens of thousands of people, most of them women and children.
“The president has underlined that all means, including the U.N. Security Council resolution, must be deployed for a cease-fire. Israel needs to be fought with full solidarity,” Altun told Turkish state broadcaster TRT Haber.
Separately, the communications director condemned an Israeli airstrike targeting a TRT crew in Gaza, saying the international community “must not stay silent in the face of such attacks “which embolden Israel.”
“The Western world must oppose this barbarity, this terrorism as soon as possible. Israel is targeting journalists, freedom of press to prevent the broadcasting of its massacres,” he said.
Erdoğan has been one of the most virulent critics of Israel since the start of the war on Gaza and a staunch defender of the Palestinian cause, including holding talks with Palestinian, Israeli and Hamas officials.
He has expressed full support for Hamas and rejected the Western stance of classifying it as a terrorist organization.
Erdoğan has also called Israel a "terrorist state" and accused it of conducting a "genocide" in Gaza.
At least 33,600 Palestinians, mostly women and children, have been killed and more than 76,000 injured due to Israel's attacks amid mass destruction and shortages of necessities in Gaza.
Israel stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which, in an interim ruling in January, ordered Tel Aviv to stop genocidal acts and take measures to guarantee that humanitarian assistance is provided to civilians in Gaza.
