Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas told a special session of the Turkish parliament on Thursday that he would travel to Gaza.
As he was speaking, Health Ministry officials in the Palestinian territory said the death toll from Israel’s assault there had passed 40,000 people.
“I have decided to go to Gaza with other brothers from the Palestinian leadership,” Abbas said receiving applause from Turkish lawmakers.
Abbas is based in Ramallah in the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip is controlled by Palestinian militant group Hamas.
Nobody is allowed to enter the enclave, apart from a handful of humanitarian workers. Abbas has not been to Gaza since Hamas took power in 2007.
“I will do that,” Abbas said in remarks translated into Turkish from Arabic. “Even if this would cost me my life.”
“Our life is not more worthy than the life of a child,” he added.
He was wearing a white scarf decorated by Turkish and Palestinian flags, as were many of the deputies listening to his speech, and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Abbas, who added a visit to Turkey after meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow, said the Palestinian people would stand tall despite the Israeli strikes.
“Gaza is ours as a whole. We don’t accept any solution that would divide our territories,” he told the parliament.
“There cannot be a Palestinian state without Gaza. Our people will not surrender,” he promised.
Rising Tensions
Abbas, who heads the Fatah Palestinian movement, a rival to Hamas, met Erdogan on Tuesday. Erdogan was present in parliament during the keynote address.
Abbas’s latest trip comes at a tense time during the 10-month Israel-Hamas war.
Efforts to reach a ceasefire have so far been unsuccessful, and Israel is braced for possible attacks from Iran and its proxies following the killings of senior Hamas officials in Iran and Lebanon.
From the Turkish parliament floor, Abbas also commemorated Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh, who was killed in Tehran, and said prayers.
A picture of the slain leader framed by red carnations was placed in one of the front seats in the parliament during Abbas’s speech.
Haniyeh was a frequent visitor to Turkey and had close ties with Erdogan, who considers Hamas a liberation movement.
Erdogan has been a fierce critic of Israel’s conduct in the war sparked by Hamas’s October 7 attacks, dubbing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “the butcher of Gaza.”
Abbas praised Erdogan’s “courageous” stance and criticized the international community’s “silence in the face of the massacres carried out by Israel.”
With AFP
