Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas met President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Parliamentary Speaker Numan Kurtulmuş before his speech at the parliament on Thursday, in a speech viewed as a response to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s controversial address to the U.S. Congress.

Abbas is a special guest of Parliament, which was called for an extraordinary session after it went into a summer recess earlier this month.

Erdoğan was among in the audience for Abbas’ speech, which will be translated into English, French and Turkish simultaneously.

The Palestinian leader’s speech at the General Assembly will naturally focus on Israel’s attacks on Gaza, which have claimed nearly 40,000 lives since October 2023. Erdoğan disclosed last month that he invited Abbas to Türkiye for the address but Abbas had not responded to the invitation. Palestinian officials later confirmed the invitation and said it was rescheduled due to health concerns for the 88-year-old leader. Originally, Türkiye had planned to invite Hamas political bureau chief Ismail Haniyeh, before the leader of the resistance movement was assassinated in Tehran on July 31.

Security measures at Parliament had been heightened before Abbas’ speech, with aerial defense systems activated in the building which was targeted by military infiltrators of the Gülenist Terror Group (FETÖ) in 2016.

Abbas was later scheduled to visit a photo exhibition on Palestine and Haniyeh opened in Parliament for the occasion.

Abbas has addressed Parliament twice in the past but Thursday’s speech is viewed as critical for Türkiye, a staunch supporter of the Palestinian cause, as Ankara seeks more pressure on Israel to stop its attacks in Gaza and a lasting solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.