President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Wednesday put the United Nations on blast for its ineffectualness to stop Israel’s genocidal campaign in the Gaza Strip after airstrikes on a Rafah tent camp that sparked a global outcry.
“The spirit of U.N. is dead in Gaza,” Erdoğan told a parliamentary meeting of his ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) in the capital Ankara.
“They failed to protect even their own staff or aid workers, let alone stop genocide,” he said, lamenting the international system’s inability to stop “atrocities” in Gaza, where more than 36,000 Palestinians have been killed since Oct. 7, mostly women and children.
“What good is the U.N. if it cannot stop genocide broadcast live in the 21st century?”
Erdoğan’s remarks came as the U.N. Security Council met to discuss a deadly Israeli attack on a displacement tent camp west of Rafah on Tuesday that killed 21 people. The Israeli army had previously designated the southern city as a so-called safe zone where 1.4 million Palestinians were taking refuge.
The U.N.’s top court, the International Court of Justice (ICJ), on Friday, too, ordered Israel to cease its military offensive in Rafah, citing concerns over the safety of Palestinian civilians, but Israel continued airstrikes, killing at least another 45 on Sunday night and igniting flames that spread quickly through tents and makeshift accommodation.
Erdoğan also hit out at fellow Muslim nations for failing to take joint action over the Israeli airstrike.
"I have some words to say to the Islamic world: what are you waiting for to take a common decision?" he said. “When will the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) implement effective, preventative policy to stop Israel's genocide?”
"Israel is not just a threat to Gaza but to all of humanity," he said and warned that “no state is safe unless Israel is made to abide by international law.”
Erdoğan also blamed the United States, Israel’s biggest arms supplier and other Western nations for alleged complicity in the ongoing genocide.
“Your hands are also stained with the blood of Palestinians from this (Rafah) massacre,” Erdoğan said. “European heads of state and government, you have become complicit in Israel's vampirism due to your silence.”
“Footage out of Rafah is unbearable,” Erdoğan went on. “Don't you have even a sliver of conscience? No religion on the globe can justify this massacre.”
Erdoğan said values such as "democracy, human rights, freedom of speech and press, women's and children's rights" have perished due to the "death of humanity" in Gaza.
He stressed that Israel’s “genocide, atrocity and barbarism must be stopped by a united alliance of humanity before (Benjamin) Netanyahu and his murderer network spiral out of control.”
"Zionism is being unmasked all over the world," he said. "Young people are beginning to see how Zionism is an unlawful perversion, and I hope this revolution will free the world from the Zionist perversion."
Erdoğan said, "Israel is attempting to exert pressure on the Court of Justice and judges," arguing that it "must be prevented from destroying the last vestige of faith in the manifestation of justice."
Israel stands accused of genocide at the ICJ, which, in its latest ruling, ordered it to immediately halt its operation in Rafah, where over a million Palestinians had sought refuge from the war before it was invaded on May 6.
Ankara has been a staunch defender of the Palestinian cause and a virulent critic of Israel since the start of its war on Gaza, which has so far killed over 36,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, in retaliation to Hamas’ cross-border attack on Israel on Oct. 7. It has accused Israel of carrying out war crimes and genocide in Gaza and its Western allies of “being complicit” in them.
Erdoğan often urges Muslim nations to take urgent action to stop Israel and hold it to account. He describes Hamas, considered a terrorist organization by Israel, the U.S. and the EU, as freedom fighters.
