New York (National Times) Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has lashed out at the United Nations for inaction on Gaza and accused Israel of turning the Palestinian territory into the “world’s largest children’s and women’s cemetery”.
Speaking at the UN General Assembly in New York on Tuesday, he said, “In Gaza, not only are children dying, but also the United Nations system. The values the West claims to defend are dying, the truth is dying, and the hopes of humanity to live in a more just world are dying – one by one.”
An outspoken critic of Israel’s offensive in Gaza, Erdogan also chastised the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for dragging the Middle East region deeper “into war”. He urged the international community to stop “Netanyahu and his murder network,” comparing the prime minister to Adolf Hitler.
“Just as Hitler was stopped by the alliance of humanity 70 years ago, Netanyahu and his murder network must be stopped by the ‘alliance of humanity’,” he said.
The Turkish president called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, where Israeli military operations have killed at least 41,467 people. In Israel, the number of those killed in the Hamas-led attacks on October 7 was at least 1,139, while more than 200 people were taken captive.
“An immediate and permanent ceasefire should be achieved, a hostage-prisoner exchange should be carried out, and humanitarian aid should be delivered to Gaza in an unhindered and uninterrupted way,” Erdogan said.
Other regional leaders also spoke out against Israel’s war on Gaza at the UNGA on Tuesday.
Jordan’s King Abdullah II ruled out the possibility of his country becoming an “alternative homeland” for the Palestinians, warning that their forced displacement by Israel would be a “war crime.”
He said he was responding to proposals floated by “extremists who are taking our region to the brink of an all-out war”.
The monarch urged the international community to join “a massive relief effort to deliver food, clean water, medicine and other vital supplies” to the Gaza Strip, where nearly a year of war has triggered “unprecedented suffering.”
“I urge all nations of conscience to unite with Jordan in the critical weeks ahead on this mission,” he said.
Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani said Israel’s war in the Gaza strip was a “genocide” as he addressed world leaders at the UNGA.
“The blatant aggression that befalls the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip today is the most barbaric, heinous and extensive aggression,” he said, calling the conflict “a crime of genocide”.
