Turkey is planning to build a 20,000-seat stadium in the Gaza strip to promote and support sports activities in Palestine, Palestinian officials revealed on Tuesday.
A member of the Higher Council of Youth and Sports in the Gaza Strip, Abd al-Salam Haniyeh, said the Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency (TIKA) would build the stadium according to international standards.
"The approval for the stadium's construction by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is one of the best contributions Turkey has provided to Palestinian sports," he said. Haniyeh addedthat the stadium would be named "Erdoğan Stadium" after the Turkish president.
Haniyeh said, earlier on Sunday, that TIKA held an iftar program for 700 Palestinian athletes and donated $225,000 to the Palestinian sports institutes.
According to the data provided by the Palestinian Ministry of Sports, a total of 30 sports facilities were destroyed and 32 athletes were killed in the Israeli offensive in Gaza last summer.
Over 2,160 Palestinians were killed and thousands injured in the onslaught-mostly civilians-while hundreds of homes and broad swathes of infrastructure were reduced to rubble across the territory, according to the UN.
At least 73 Israelis-68 soldiers and five civilians-were also killed during the 51-day conflict.
