UPDATE - Gaza has become ‘world’s largest extermination camp’: Turkish president

UPDATES WITH MORE REMARKS BY TURKISH PRESIDENT

By Esra Tekin and Seda Sevencan

ISTANBUL (AA) - Türkiye’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday said the Gaza Strip has become the “world’s largest extermination camp,” and Israel has committed an atrocity that will “outshine Hitler.”

"Western leaders and organizations whose duty is to ensure international security have only watched this brutality from afar for almost 300 days," Erdogan said in a speech in the capital Ankara.

“How many more children need to die to see that Israel's invasive policies endanger the entire region? Look, this is not a path that can continue,” he added. Israel has killed more than 39,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, in Gaza since Oct. 7.

The Turkish president said Israel is the only country in the region that seeks its security through “aggression, massacres and land seizure,” acting like a “terrorist organization.”

He said the "lawless Israeli state is a threat not only to Palestine and Lebanon but to humanity as a whole, to the entire world at this point."

“Hitler had been stopped, even if belatedly, by the alliance of the US and the Soviet Union. This genocide, savagery, and barbarism must also be stopped immediately by the alliance of humanity before it is too late,” Erdogan added.

“Those pulling the strings of the Netanyahu administration must say ‘stop’ to this massacre network without delay. We are aware of what the murderer called Netanyahu is seeking to achieve, what kind of a catastrophe he is trying to drag our region and the entire world into," he said.

"We also know very well the true motive behind his attempts to spread the fire in Gaza to the whole region. Whatever we do, we do it to prevent such a scenario. Whatever we say, we say it to stop the tears and bloodshed in our region.”