First lady Emine Erdoğan decried the international community’s silence in the face of Israel’s massacre of Palestinian civilians in Gaza and said the Israeli army was engaged in an attempt to "wipe out a nation."
Addressing an event on the Turkish Red Crescent (Kızılay) at an exhibition hall of the Nation’s Library in the capital Ankara on Tuesday, Erdoğan said the question for them was "how we will spend our lives" in the face of Israel’s atrocities.
"You will either depart this world as a person hailing cruelty or as a companion to the oppressed," the first lady said.
Emine Erdoğan, along with the president, champions the Palestinian cause for the establishment of an independent Palestinian state and has been vocal in her criticism of Israel’s indiscriminate attacks violating international laws in Gaza. She is also supervising efforts for the treatment and sheltering of Palestinian children from besieged Palestinian cities.
She said on Tuesday that they were following in the footsteps of their ancestors, working to end the bloodshed, "whether in Gaza, Ukraine, Jerusalem, Yemen, Baghdad, Aleppo or Damascus." "We stand by all the oppressed of the world and work for establishing permanent peace," she said.
On the governmental level, Türkiye launched a diplomatic blitz to find a solution to the conflict, to be preceded by an immediate cease-fire. The Turkish public, meanwhile, took to the streets for days to protest Israel’s crimes against humanity. Türkiye sent some 10 planeloads of humanitarian aid for Gaza so far but the closure of the Rafah border crossing delayed the delivery. The Health Ministry also readied field hospitals and offered treatment to patients in bombed-out hospitals of Gaza in Türkiye. The ongoing blockade and Israel’s rejection of a cease-fire thwart efforts.
The first lady said Gaza was cut off from the world in the 21st century, "right before the eyes of humanity." "Hospitals, ambulances, warehouses of Red Cross, Red Crescent, places of worship and schools are targeted. Aid trucks kept waiting on the border, water and energy cut off, our floating field hospitals are blocked. Earth is witnessing an unprecedented savagery we cannot even call a war," she said. "Equipped with high technology, the Israeli army systematically attacks civilians, particularly children, to wipe out a nation. Contravening international law, they use weapons of mass destruction against innocent children. They slaughter humanitarian values as well," she added.
Century-old legacy
The Turkish Red Crescent event addressed by the first lady is entitled "A Century-old Legacy" and it sheds light on letters by prisoners of war. The exhibition includes copies of letters penned by soldiers captured during World War I and the Balkan wars of the Ottoman Empire. Some of the letters in possession of the Turkish Red Crescent, which was originally conceived in the 19th century to help injured soldiers, were delivered to descendants of the prisoners earlier. The Red Crescent set up a Committee of Prisoners during the Ottoman Empire's Balkan wars to protect the rights of prisoners and help them communicate with their families.
The first lady said the Turkish Red Crescent did great service since its foundation, from identifying prisoners of war and addressing their needs. She noted that in an age where means of transportation and communication were limited, the Turkish Red Crescent went beyond borders to deliver everything from letters to hand-sewn clothes and cash to their owners, from prisoners of war to their families and vice versa. "Our soldiers adhered to laws while fighting, yet we live in a region where some states cannot even observe this law in peacetime. Despite this, we serve as an oasis of peace," she said.