Turkey declared three days of national mourning on Wednesday, a day after the attack on a Gaza hospital that left many dead and for which Israel and the Palestinians accuse each other.
“Out of respect for the thousands of martyrs, most of whom are children and innocent civilians, three days of national mourning are decreed in our country,” said Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in a message on the social network Twitter.
“We, Turkey, feel in our hearts the deep pain that our Palestinian brothers feel,” added the Turkish head of state.
“Crime against humanity”
President Erdogan on Tuesday afternoon called for “an end to this unprecedented brutality in Gaza,” accusing Israel of having “hit a hospital housing women, children and innocent civilians.”
Recep Tayyip Erdogan again denounced on Wednesday “a crime against humanity comparable to a genocide against the population of Gaza.”
The Israeli army, however, claimed on Wednesday to have “evidence” of the responsibility of the Palestinian group Islamic Jihad in this attack, a version supported by US President Joe Biden, visiting Israel.
The strike sparked widespread emotion in Turkey, where some 80,000 people demonstrated outside the Israeli consulate in Istanbul on Tuesday afternoon, according to authorities.
New demonstrations in front of the Israeli and US consulates brought together thousands of people on Wednesday night in Istanbul, according to AFP journalists present at the scene.
Source: BFM TV
