Parliament Speaker Numan Kurtulmuş met Rawhi Fattouh, chair of the Palestinian National Council, in the capital, Ankara, on Thursday. Kurtulmuş voiced Türkiye’s support for the Palestinian cause and greetings to oppressed, innocent civilians amid Israel’s attacks on Gaza.
Issuing a joint statement of condemnation, Parliament has come together in a rare unity after a brutal airstrike targeting a hospital killed hundreds in Gaza. Turkish lawmakers are also exploring ways to visit Gaza to show their solidarity with Palestinians trapped in the besieged enclave.
“As nations supporting the Palestinian cause, we will continue to work on this issue. It appears that a new political chapter will be opened and a greater political struggle will be carried out in the coming years for Gaza,” he said.
“Our brothers and sisters in Gaza are exposed to unprecedented cruelty,” Kurtulmuş said.
“As we are talking here, homes are bombed in Gaza. People are deprived of their basic needs, health care services. There is an ongoing massacre amounting to genocide. Like the Auschwitz and Srebrenica massacres, the Gaza massacre will take its place in the annals of history as a shame for humanity. Mankind, particularly the Western countries, remained silent in the face of past massacres in Auschwitz and Srebrenica and we see they are acting the same way today,” he lamented.
He pointed out that Türkiye strongly reacted to the massacre and ongoing genocide at the highest level. “We in Parliament, our president, are exerting efforts in all international platforms for an immediate cease-fire. Parliament discusses the matter with other parliaments and exhibits political pressure to drive the international community to take action to that extent,” he said.
Kurtulmuş also said Israel’s oppression could not last forever and just like the perpetrators of the Srebrenica massacre, that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and “his gang” will be tried at the International Criminal Court.
For his part, Fattouh thanked Kurtulmuş and lawmakers for “instilling courage” in the Palestinian people and for their “brave stance” on the issue. Fattouh also thanked President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the people of Türkiye, who took to the streets in rallies in solidarity with Palestinians. Fattouh summed up the dramatic situation in Gaza and said Israeli soldiers were also killing children, women and elderly in Palestinian cities other than Gaza. But he said they remained steadfast and despite the attacks, Palestinians “would not abandon their lands.”
