Turkey to Continue Sending Humanitarian Aid to Gaza Strip, Erdogan Says
© AP Photo / Turkish Presidency
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ANKARA (Sputnik) - On October 7, the Palestinian group Hamas carried out a surprise rocket attack against Israel from the Gaza Strip, prompting Israel to declare a state of war the following day and launch strikes in response.
Turkey will continue sending humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip with Egypt’s mediation, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday.
"We, together with Egypt, will continue to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza … We invite all parties to negotiate first a ceasefire and then a lasting peace. The actions of some countries, pouring gasoline on the fire instead of calling for calm, are deepening the crisis," Erdogan said during a speech.
Later in the day, Erdogan told his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron that Western countries must take action to de-escalate tensions in the Middle East.
"Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has held a telephone conversation with French President Emmanuel Macron. During the talk, they discussed the humanitarian situation in the region, efforts to restore calm and steps that need to be taken regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the intensity of which is increasing every day. President Erdogan said that human rights violations against civilians in Gaza were unacceptable, that Turkey was making efforts to provide humanitarian aid to them, that especially Western countries should take action to de-escalate tensions and that efforts that do not serve peace should be avoided," Erdogan's office said in a statement.
In addition, the Turkish president told Macron that the international community needed to take heed of Turkey's proposal of a two-state solution to solve the issue once and for all. With a sincere approach, a solution can be found that could bring relief to the region as well as to the whole world, he said.
Meanwhile, the Turkish Foreign Ministry said that it considered "totally unacceptable" Israel's warning to more than a million Palestinians to leave the northern Gaza Strip within 24 hours.
"The Israel Defense Forces' [IDF] announcement that the Palestinian population in northern Gaza had to move south within 24 hours is totally unacceptable. Forcing 2.5 million Gaza residents, who have been subjected to days of indiscriminate bombing and deprived of electricity, water and food, to migrate within a very limited area is a clear violation of international law and has no right to exist from a humanitarian point of view," the ministry said in a statement.
The ministry added that Ankara expected Israel to denounce that "grave mistake" immediately and to stop its "cruel and indiscriminate actions" against the civilian population of Gaza.
Earlier in the day, the IDF urged civilians in Gaza City to evacuate southward "for their own safety." UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said the Israeli military had also notified the UN that the population of Gaza north and the UN staff should relocate to southern Gaza within 24 hours. Hamas has called on Gazans to ignore Israel's evacuation warnings.
