Thousands of protestors hit the streets across Türkiye on Sunday to rally against Israel’s attacks on the Gaza Strip and call for a free Palestine.
Protestors waved Palestinian flags, posters and banners calling for a cease-fire and chanted for “an end to Israel’s siege on Gaza” and “an end to the Zionist regime.”
In Istanbul, the crowd, interspersed with both Turkish and foreign nationals, shouted slogans like “Free Palestine” and “No more genocide,” while marching from the historic Beyazıt Square to the Hagia Sophia Grand Mosque.
The march was organized by several nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), chiefly the Humanitarian Aid Foundation (IHH), which is also mobilizing a flotilla with activists from 11 other nations to breach the Israeli blockade and deliver aid to the Palestinians.
“People came from all over the world to support us,” IHH Director Bülent Yıldırım told reporters from the front lines of the cortege in Istanbul alongside activists that will participate in the “International Freedom Flotilla.”
“These people are part of activists stirring up the United States and Europe. They are pushing their governments to pressure Israel for a cease-fire in Gaza,” Yıldırım said. “We aim to contribute to the facilitation of a cease-fire.”
The Turkish public's outrage has been intense since Israel launched a deadly military offensive on the Palestinian enclave after an Oct. 7 cross-border attack by the Palestinian resistance group Hamas, in which 1,139 Israelis were reportedly killed.
Israel responded by killing nearly 34,100 people, mostly women and children, in Gaza since Oct. 7 and injuring 77,000 others, with mass destructions and severe shortages of necessities.
Mass protests nationwide condemned Israel's relentless attacks, called for a permanent cease-fire and public agencies, municipalities, universities and even Parliament implemented a boycott of goods of Israeli origin.
The Israeli war, nearing its seventh month, has pushed 85% of Gaza's population into internal displacement amid acute shortages of food, clean water, and medicine, while 60% of the enclave's infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed, according to the U.N.
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 where risk of famine is growing day by day.
Türkiye has been a vocal critic of Israel since the start of the war and a staunch defender of the Palestinian cause, including holding talks with Palestinian, Israeli and Hamas officials.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has called Israel a "terrorist state" and accused it of carrying out a genocide in Gaza. He has expressed full support for Hamas and rejected the Western stance of classifying it as a terrorist organization.
Türkiye has also dispatched over 45,000 tons of aid to Egypt for delivery to Gaza, either by military planes or vessels.
It’s taking part in the International Freedom Flotilla, with 11 other nations, including the United Kingdom, Sweden and the United States. Some 14 years after a similar attempt was fatally suppressed by Israel, the flotilla aims to break Israel’s blockade of the Palestinian enclave of Gaza. More than 1,000 people are expected to travel aboard the flotilla's ships, whose number currently stands at three
