Israel must be forced to maintain peace in Gaza: Erdoğan

ISTANBUL

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has urged international powers to force Israel to comply with the 20-article peace plan in Gaza as the Netanyahu government has "already proven its intentions to break the ceasefire and is resuming its genocidal acts" against Palestinian civilians.

“Everyone knows Israel’s terrible record when it comes to keeping its promises,” Erdoğan said in his address at a forum held by TRT World in Istanbul on Oct. 31, recalling that it killed around 100 Palestinians in recent days despite the ceasefire.

“Maintaining ceasefire, delivering humanitarian aid and launching efforts to reconstruct Gaza will only be possible if Israel is forced to do so,” he said.

A peace plan between Israel and Hamas brokered by U.S. President Donald Trump and signed by Türkiye, Qatar and Egypt requires both sides to comply with the ceasefire so that more comprehensive steps can be taken for the normalization of life in Gaza.

Israel is frequently breaching the agreement and disallows the entrance of trucks carrying humanitarian aid into Gaza although Hamas is diligently implementing it, the president said.

“Türkiye is ready to assume full responsibility in helping Palestinians,” Erdoğan said, reiterating that it will continue to stand with Palestine today and tomorrow. The president expressed his satisfaction with the increased number of countries that recognized the State of Palestine, saying, “We invite all the countries that have not yet done so.”

The two-year-long Israeli brutality against the civilians in Gaza that killed more than 70,000 people was not enough for the international system to take action to stop it and it has proven once again that the world’s fate cannot be left to the mercy of five nations, Erdoğan underlined.

“We repeat that the world is bigger than five. It is obvious that the international system needs to be reconstructed with new ideas and contributions,” he stated.

“They say ‘Israel is innocent.’ How come? They possess nuclear weapons. They possess the strongest bombs. They have the liberty of hitting Gaza any time with any sort of weapon. How can be innocent?” Erdoğan said. “Israel is not innocent; it is the one who is the cruelest.”

Türkiye will never buy this kind of lies and will respond to such kind of manipulations, Erdoğan said, hinting at his press conference with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz on Oct. 30, where the latter stressed Israel’s right to self-defense.

“Israel also used hunger as a weapon against children,” Erdoğan said, criticizing the silence and inability of the relevant global institutions to stop this.

“While all of this happened, institutions tasked to protect the global peace did not take any step to prevent the genocide,” Erdoğan said, criticizing the U.N. Security Council’s permanent members who failed to adopt resolutions to this end.

Erdoğan also touched on recent developments in Sudan where paramilitary troops have killed scores of civilians in Al-Feshir province of the African nation.

“I curse the killing of civilians in Al-Fashir in the strongest terms. The atrocities against the civilians must stop,” Erdoğan said, stressing that Ankara is ready to engage in a bid to cease the bloody conflict.