Turkish politicians have united in their condemnation of Israel after an airstrike by the Israeli military killed at least 500 people at a hospital in the blockaded enclave of Gaza on Tuesday.
Statements denouncing Israeli aggression flowed in on Tuesday and Wednesday as politicians expressed solidarity with the Palestinians.
In a rare display of unity, all political parties in the Turkish Parliament issued a joint statement strongly condemning Israel’s “crime against humanity.”
More than 500 people were killed in an Israeli airstrike on Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza on Tuesday, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
The airstrike came on day 11 in the current conflict, with a growing international chorus of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and world leaders saying the Israeli bombing campaign on the besieged Gaza Strip – including strikes on health care facilities, homes and houses of worship – violates international law and may constitute a war crime.
Palestinian group Hamas called the targeting of the hospital an act of “genocide.”
“We are deeply saddened that hundreds of Palestinians have lost their lives and many more have been injured” by Israel’s airstrike, said the Turkish statement, signed by all political parties and groups in Parliament.
“We condemn these attacks, which are crimes against humanity, in the strongest possible terms,” it said, stressing that it is closely following developments in Palestine and Israel.
“We deplore Israel’s increasing and continuing attacks against the people of Gaza in violation of international law and international humanitarian law,” the statement emphasized. “We wish grace to our Palestinian brothers and sisters who lost their lives in the attacks and urgent healing to the wounded.”
“As all party groups and deputies of the Turkish Grand National Assembly, we invite world parliaments, the international community and organizations to take a stance and initiative to stop these atrocities,” it added.
Separately via X, Parliament Speaker Numan Kurtulmuş called on world nations, saying, “How long more are we to stay silent as this grave crime against humanity engulfs the entire world bit by bit and erodes what makes us human one by one? Someone must teach this brutal order, which knows no law, and its supporters that even enmity has honor.”
“Who, which institution, what authority will stop this massacre, these war crimes?” Kurtulmuş reiterated that Türkiye will “continue standing against disproportionate, barbaric attacks deprived of any kind of humanity or morals on Gaza.”
Main opposition leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, too, had nothing but harsh remarks for the hospital attack, coining it a “crime against humanity in no uncertain terms.”
“Israel has committed a crime against humanity. This is called murder and massacre. I condemn it,” the Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader wrote on X while his party officials said: “Those staying silent in the face of this attack share as much blame as the perpetrators of it.”
The sharpest accusation, however, came from the Good Party (IP) Chair Meral Akşener, who compared Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Adolf Hitler.
“There is nothing more left to say for murderer Netanyahu. He is the Hitler of the 21st century, the disgrace of a people that lived through the Holocaust,” Akşener said Wednesday as she addressed her party’s parliamentary meeting.
“Times may differ, but the mentality is the same and he must be tried immediately,” the IP leader stressed.
Lambasting Israel for “stooping low enough to target civilians and bomb hospitals,” she called its attacks “straight-up terrorism because no other state bombs hospitals.”
Akşener recalled the Nazi attacks on Jewish homes, shops and synagogues in 1938s Germany and said Tuesday night’s airstrikes in Gaza were “a shadow of what happened in that cold November” and urged people worldwide not to stay silent “to this barbarity” and “put a stop to it before it’s too late.”
Another opposition party chair, Ali Babacan of the Democracy and Progress Party (DEVA), personally visited the Palestinian Ambassador to Ankara Faed Mustafa to relay his condolences over the loss of Palestinian lives in the hospital strike.
Also describing the events in Gaza as “a massacre,” Babacan said the efforts of the international community were “lacking in facilitating a cease-fire or humanitarian aid.”
Eleven days into the conflict with the Palestinian group Hamas, Israel’s bombardment and blockade of the Gaza Strip continued, with over 1 million people displaced – almost half of Gaza’s total population, according to the U.N. Agency for Palestinian Refugees or UNRWA.
The fighting began on Oct. 7 when Hamas initiated Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, a multipronged surprise attack that included a barrage of rocket launches and infiltrations into Israel by land, sea and air. It said the incursion was in retaliation for the storming of the Al-Aqsa Mosque and increased violence by Israeli settlers.
The Israeli military then launched Operation Swords of Iron against Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip.
Israel’s response has extended into cutting water and electricity supplies to Gaza, further worsening the living conditions in an area that has reeled under a crippling siege since 2007.
At least 3,061 Palestinians have been killed and 13,750 others have been injured in the ongoing Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza Strip, the Health Ministry in Gaza said.
More than 1,400 Israelis have been killed in the armed conflict.
