Amid 'crimes' in Gaza, Turkish President Erdogan urges countries to stop supplying arms to Israel

By Esra Tekin

ISTANBUL (AA) - Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Thursday called on countries that continue to supply arms to Israel to end their “complicity in its crimes” in its months-long deadly offensive on the Gaza Strip.

“Countries providing ammunition and weapon support to Israel's massacres must now refrain from complicity in these crimes,” Erdogan said during a joint news conference in the capital Ankara with his Uzbek counterpart Shavkat Mirziyoyev.

Prodding an international community who he says has not done enough to end the Gaza “massacre,” Erdogan also urged all “conscientious and responsible parties to take the wheel” to help reach an immediate cease-fire in Gaza.

​​​​​​Israel has continued its brutal offensive on Gaza since an Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attack despite a UN Security Council resolution demanding an immediate cease-fire

Some 36,600 Palestinians have since been killed in Gaza, most of them women and children, and over 83,000 others injured, according to local health authorities

Eight months into the Israeli war, vast tracts of Gaza lay in ruins amid a crippling blockade of food, clean water, and medicine

Israel stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice, whose latest ruling ordered Tel Aviv to immediately halt its operation in the southern city of Rafah, where over a million Palestinians had sought refuge from the war before it was invaded on May 6.​​​​​​​