Newsletters
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan urged Israel on Saturday to immediately cease attacks and comply with U.S. President Donald Trump's ceasefire plan for the Gaza Strip.
Hamas' response to the plan "constitutes a constructive and significant step toward the achievement of lasting peace," Erdogan wrote on X.
"As Türkiye, we will continue to strive with all our means to ensure that the negotiations yield the most beneficial outcome for the Palestinian people and that the two‑state solution, supported by the international community, is brought into effect," he said.
Erdogan said necessary steps "must be taken without delay to ensure the delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza and to achieve lasting peace."
"This genocide, this disgraceful picture that has deeply wounded the global conscience, must now come to an end," he added.
Hamas issued its formal response on Friday to Trump's plan, approving the release of all Israeli captives, the delivery of the bodies of the deceased and the handover of Gaza's administration to an independent technocratic Palestinian body.
Trump gave Hamas until 6 p.m. Washington time Sunday to approve his plan.
Trump thanked several countries on Friday for their involvement in ceasefire efforts, including Qatar, Türkiye, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan.
"I want to thank the countries that helped me put this together," Trump said in a video message.
While noting the deal had yet to be finalized "in concrete," Trump called the development an unprecedented "big day."
"Thank you all to those great countries that helped. We were given a tremendous amount of help. Everybody was unified in wanting this war to end and seeing peace in the Middle East and we're very close to achieving that," he said.
The plan seeks to turn Gaza into a weapons-free zone, with a transitional governance mechanism overseen directly by Trump through a new international body tasked with monitoring implementation.
The plan includes the release of all Israeli captives held by Hamas within 72 hours of approval, in exchange for the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails.
The plan mandates a halt to hostilities, disarming all armed groups in Gaza and Israel's gradual withdrawal from the war-torn coastal enclave, which is to be governed by a technocratic authority under the supervision of an international body led by the US president.
Israel has maintained a blockade on Gaza, home to nearly 2.4 million people, for nearly 18 years. It tightened the siege in March when it closed border crossings and blocked food and medicine deliveries, pushing the enclave into famine.
Since October 2023, Israeli bombardment has killed nearly 66,300 Palestinians, most of them women and children. The U.N. and rights groups have repeatedly warned that the enclave is being rendered uninhabitable, with starvation and disease spreading rapidly amid widespread displacement.
1 min read
4 min read
