Turkish President Erdogan called on Israel to stop its attacks on Gaza,
Israel levels Gaza district as Palestinian death toll reaches 3,785
Situation inside Gaza is ‘beyond catastrophic’; desperately needed international aid piles up near border
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Friday called on Israel to stop its attacks on Gaza, which he said amounted to genocide, and urged the international community to work for a humanitarian ceasefire in the region.
In a post on social messaging platform X, Erdogan also said Israel was provoking non-regional actors instead of turning back from its mistakes in Gaza, adding that the region needed saving from the “frenzy of madness” supported by Western powers and media.
“I repeat my call for the Israeli leadership to never expand the scope of its attacks on civilians and to immediately end its operations amounting to genocide,” Erdogan said.
He said Ankara was working to end the fighting between Israeli and Palestinian forces before they reached “a point of no return.”
The Palestinian Red Crescent announced on Friday that they received a warning from Israeli forces to ‘immediately evacuate’ Gaza’s Al-Quds hospital, which currently houses over 400 patients and 12,000 displaced civilians.
The Palestinian Red Crescent issued an urgent appeal to the international community, saying: “We call on the world to take immediate and urgent action to prevent a new massacre like the one that occurred on the Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital.”
The Palestinian Red Crescent said Israel has threatened to bomb the hospital.
The organization also said it has informed Israel that the patients in Al-Quds Hospital are in a very critical condition.
Israel levelled a northern Gaza district on Friday after giving families a half-hour warning to escape, and hit an Orthodox Christian church where others had been sheltering, as it made clear that a command to invade Gaza was expected soon.
More than 3,785 Palestinians have been killed including more than 1,500 children, Palestinian officials say. The UN says more than a million have been made homeless.
Desperately needed international aid piled near Gaza, with Palestinians in dire need of food and water after relentless bombing by Israel, still reeling from the bloodiest attack in its history.
Israel has vowed to destroy Hamas after the group launched an attack from the Gaza Strip on October 7
In response, Israeli warplanes have levelled entire city blocks in Gaza in preparation for a ground invasion they say is coming soon.
The United Nations says more than one million of Gaza’s 2.4 million people have been displaced and that the humanitarian situation is worsening by the day, with no green light yet to send in the trucks lined up at the border.
A picture taken from the southern Israeli city of Sderot shows smoke ascending over the northern Gaza Strip following an Israeli airstrike. PHOTO: Reuters
Medicine, water purifiers and blankets were being unloaded at El Arish airport near Gaza, an AFP reporter saw, with Ahmed Ali, head of the Egyptian Red Crescent, saying he was getting “two to three planes of aid a day”.
The situation inside Gaza is “beyond catastrophic”, said Sara Alzawqari, UNICEF spokeswoman for the Gulf. “Time is running out and the numbers of casualties amongst children are rising.”
Egyptian state-linked broadcaster Al Qahera News had said the Rafah crossing — the only route into Gaza — would open on Friday, but Cairo later said it needed more time to repair roads.
In Geneva, the WHO’s emergencies director called a deal struck by US President Joe Biden to allow in 20 trucks “a drop in the ocean of need”. “It should be 2,000 trucks,” Michael Ryan said.
Within Israel, still coming to terms with the deadliest attack in its 75-year history, the drumbeat of war was growing louder, as leaders rallied troops for a ground offensive.
Decked out in body armour, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited front-line troops near Gaza, urging them to “fight like lions” and “win with full force”.
Defence Minister Yoav Gallant also toured the front line, telling some of the tens of thousands of troops awaiting the ground invasion that new orders would come soon.