“Gaza will emerge victorious,” the son of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan told tens of thousands of attendees at an anti-Israel rally in Istanbul on Wednesday.
Businessman Bilal Erdoğan, 43, said in his speech on Istanbul’s Galata Bridge over the Golden Horn: “Muslims in Syria were determined, patient, and they achieved victory. After Syria, Gaza will emerge victoriously from the siege.”
Demonstrators waved Turkish and PLO flags and chanted “Free Palestine” at the rally organized by the National Will Platform, a coalition of more than 300 pro-Palestinian and Islamic groups.
President Erdoğan had led a vehemently anti-Israel line even before the outbreak of war between Israel and Iran’s proxies in October 2023, and has escalated it since then.
In July, Erdoğan threatened to invade Israel. “We must be very strong so that Israel can’t do these things to Palestine. Just as we entered Karabakh, just as we entered Libya, we might do the same to them. There is nothing we cannot do,” he said.
In November, he reiterated his intention of cutting ties with Israel, vowing to do in a speech and adding, “We will maintain this stance in the future as well.”
In response to Erdoğan’s escalation, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly torpedoed a Turkish bid to mediate in the ongoing war between Hamas in Gaza and Israel.
Separately, Amichai Chikli, Israel’s minister of Diaspora affairs and combating antisemitism, last month endorsed an independent Kurdish entity, which he juxtaposed with Syrian jihadist rebels supported by Turkey. Turkey has been fighting the Kurdish nationalist ambitions for decades.
