Speaking at an event in the capital, Ankara, on Tuesday, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan lambasted Israel and its Western supporters in the face of the Netanyahu administration's reckless attacks on the Gaza Strip.

The president inaugurated a culture center in the capital named after a famous magazine founded by Mehmet Akif Ersoy, the author of the Turkish National Anthem. Tuesday marked the 103rd anniversary of the fledgling Republic of Türkiye's adoption of the anthem.

Erdoğan, who often quotes Ersoy's poems in his speeches, praised Ersoy's reflection on the national will that brought Türkiye independence after World War I. The president said conveying the "spirit of national struggle" (for independence) to future generations was important. "Centers like these build bridges between the past and the future," he said. Erdoğan told an anecdote about a man seeking a key he lost in the dark, in "a well-lit place," and how Türkiye sought the key in the wrong places while it was in its own history. "We have to stand with (the values) of our civilization," he said as he criticized the Western civilization.

"The West and Israel set the world on fire for their own interests. These are people who attempt to legitimize Israel's brutal acts in Gaza while marketing values like democracy and human rights elsewhere. We should not follow in their footsteps," he said. "Magicians of the modern times cannot blur the reality. It is the same in Türkiye. Nobody can sell the darkness as 'light' to our people," he said, referring to Türkiye's fondness of Western values and ignorance of values and concepts associated with Islam and Ottoman civilization.

Türkiye advocates a two-state solution to the issue and is engaged in diplomatic efforts to stop the Israeli aggression that has claimed the lives of tens of thousands in the Gaza Strip.