“A state dressed in hate, devoid of mercy and conscience is dragging our world into disaster by raining missiles over children in Gaza,” Turkish first lady Emine Erdoğan on Thursday warned as she called for peace in the blockaded Palestinian region.
Since Israel launched strikes on the Gaza Strip in relation to a Hamas incursion on Oct. 7, more children have been killed than in any other conflict in the last three years, Erdoğan told an international conference on “Children and Youths at Work: Climate Change in Central Asia” in the Uzbek capital Tashkent.
“The only way to stop this bloodshed hinges on looking at it through a conscientious and merciful perspective devoid of religious, historical bonds or political, commercial relations,” the first lady stressed.
“We expect the world to show the same sensitivity they have shown to Myanmar, Somali, Ukraine and Syria to Palestine, as well,” Erdoğan said.
“Discriminating the laments of mothers and children based on language, religion and skin color is being complicit to this crime against humanity.”
She assured Türkiye will “determinedly continue its efforts to facilitate first a cease-fire and then lasting peace in Palestine, because we want a world where children are able to grow up and paint the earth with their smiles, not their blood.”
Since the latest round of the Palestine-Israel conflict erupted a month ago, the Turkish Presidency, government and nation stood united to put an end to the killing of Palestinian civilians and alleviate their plight through diplomacy and humanitarian aid efforts.
Türkiye is working hard to defend the Palestinian cause as Israel mercilessly continues its killing of civilians in Palestinian territories, from Gaza to the West Bank.
Immediately after a new stage of the conflict broke out on Oct. 7, the country mobilized to put an end to what the government says are war crimes amounting to genocide targeting Palestinians.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, a staunch defender of the rights of Palestinians in the international community, has held meetings and phone calls with presidents and prime ministers of 27 countries since Oct. 7 for a solution to the issue and an urgent cease-fire.
Türkiye believes a “two-state solution” with a fully independent Palestinian state is the only way to resolve the issue permanently.
On the humanitarian front, Türkiye arranged several initiatives for assistance to Palestinians.
On Oct. 22, a presidential plane carrying medicine, medical equipment and 20 medical staff left for Egypt, where the Rafah border crossing, the only gateway to the outside world for Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, is located.
Health Minister Fahrettin Koca told Parliament on Thursday that he held talks with his Israeli counterpart for the transfer of children receiving cancer treatment in Gaza to Türkiye “as soon as possible.”
More than 10,800 people, many of them children, have been killed in Gaza, not including over 180 other Palestinians killed in the West Bank in nearly five weeks of Israeli strikes. Tens of thousands have streamed out of devastated northern Gaza in recent days to seek shelter in the south.
The U.N. agency responsible for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said 70,000 people had traveled south on the route since Nov. 4, most of them walking.
Almost 1.6 million people have been internally displaced since Oct. 7, it added, more than half the area's population.
But the U.N. estimates hundreds of thousands of civilians remain in the fiercest hot zones in the north.
As for the increasing threat of climate change, the first lady warned that the issue was a “matter of children’s rights because one in three children globally is exposed to this threat.”
“Central Asia, Africa and the Mediterranean are becoming the riskiest regions despite having no historical responsibility in worldwide destruction,” Erdoğan said.
Pointing to the Zero Waste Project she chairs under the U.N., she said the goal is to ensure justice between the generations and urged world nations to support the project as a “responsibility movement.”
