In fiery remarks to lawmakers from his party, Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, on Wednesday, May 29, 2024, took aim at the UN.
He asked what good the multinational group is if it cannot even stop “genocide” in the 21st century.
“The UN cannot even protect its own staff. What are you waiting for to act? The spirit of the United Nations is dead in Gaza.”
Recep Tayyip Erdogan
Addressing the broader Muslim world, Erdogan called for unity and decisive action.
“I have some words to say to the Islamic world: what are you waiting for to take a common decision?” Erdogan averred.
Erdogan asserted that Israel is not just a threat to Gaza “but to all of humanity.”
“No state is safe as long as Israel does not follow international law and does not feel bound by international law,” Erdogan added, while iterating an accusation that Israel is committing “genocide” in Gaza.
Erdogan has been one of Israel’s most vocal critics during the war, calling it a “terror state” and imposing restrictions on trade with the country.
Moreover, the Turkish President unleashed criticism at Western leaders over their “silence” on the Gaza war.
“European heads of state and government, you have become complicit in Israel’s vampirism due to your silence,” he said.
“America, this blood is also on your hands,” he added.
Erdogan accused Netanyahu of overseeing barbaric acts against innocent civilians.
“No ideology sees the burning to death of innocent civilians in their tents as legitimate. The world is watching the barbarism of this vampire called Netanyahu live.”
Recep Tayyip Erdogan
According to the Health Ministry in Gaza, at least 36,171 Palestinians have been killed and 81,420 wounded in Israeli attacks on Gaza since October 7, 2023,
Fighting In Gaza To Continue For At Least 7 Months
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s National Security Adviser, Tzachi Hanegbi, stated that he expects fighting in Gaza to continue throughout 2024 at least.
He also disclosed that the Israeli military was in control of 75 percent of the Philadelphi Corridor, a buffer zone between Gaza and Egypt.
The Philadelphi Corridor, also known as the Philadelphi Route, is the 14km (8.7 miles) long strip of land representing the entire border area between Gaza and Egypt.
It was established as a buffer zone controlled and patrolled by Israeli armed forces as part of the 1979 peace treaty with Egypt.
Its stated purpose was to stop weapons and material from reaching the hands of Palestinians inside the Gaza Strip, which Israel occupied, and to prevent people from moving between the Palestinian lands and Egypt without tough checks.
An agreement after the Israeli disengagement from the area in 2005 allowed Egypt to safeguard the Egyptian side of the corridor, with the Palestinian Authority responsible for the other side.
Bowever, Hamas was in full control of the enclave some two years after the Israeli withdrawal.
Israel wants full control of the border area, supposedly to ensure its security. But this would amount to a de facto full reoccupation of the Gaza Strip, something Israel and the United States have publicly disagreed over.
Omar Ashour, Professor of security and military studies at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, opined that Israel’s military is attempting to divide Gaza into small, disconnected pockets, weakening it in much the same way it has the occupied West Bank.
He stated that Israel will do this by creating three separate corridors in the enclave;the Netzarim Corridor, which splits Gaza into north and south, a separate east-west division and a 1km (0.6 mile) buffer zone along the Israeli border.
Ashour predicted that Israel’s military will then use these zones as bases from which to launch regular raids into Gaza, in a strategy that avoids full-on military occupation but continues to cause high civilian casualties.
He said that Israel is unlikely to forgo this strategy unless the United States withholds extensive weaponry or delivers “serious condemnation,” adding that both scenarios are unlikely.
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