President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Wednesday met with Philippe Lazzarini, the general commissioner of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), at the Presidential Complex in the Turkish capital Ankara.
Erdoğan and Lazzarini held a closed-door meeting, the president’s office said, without elaborating.
The meeting likely tackled Israel’s deadly attacks on the Gaza Strip and the U.N. aid agency’s efforts in the blockaded enclave.
Lazzarini recently said, "There is no alternative to the humanitarian organization for the badly-needed humanitarian response in Gaza,” where Israel has killed more than 37,000 Palestinians and created conditions of famine in just over eight months.
Many countries had suspended aid to the U.N. agency over Israeli allegations linking its staffers to the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attack.
But most of the key donors resumed aid after an independent review of the UNRWA found that Israel had not provided any evidence to back its claims.
Türkiye, a vocal critic of Israel since the start of the conflict and a staunch defender of the Palestinian cause, has delivered over 50,000 tons of humanitarian aid, including food, water, tents and clothes, to Gaza so far.
