Turkey’s intelligence chief Ibrahim Kalin met with Hamas leaders on Saturday for talks about how to deliver aid to war-ravaged Gaza where Israel resumed its military offensive last month.
Kalin held talks with Mohammad Darwish, head of the terror group’s political council and his delegation, Turkey’s Anadolu state news agency reported, without saying where the meeting took place. Media reports said it was in Turkey.
As well as discussing ways to deliver humanitarian aid, they also spoke of initiatives to secure a permanent ceasefire along with ways to counter any plans to forcibly displace Gaza’s population, Anadolu said, citing security sources.
Kalin reassured them of Turkey’s ongoing support and said Ankara would firmly oppose any new efforts to occupy or annex Palestinian territory.
Israel has recently pushed to expand the buffer zone along the borders with the Strip, which is set to include the entire city of Rafah, to an area totaling around 30 percent of the coastal enclave.
Israel has also resumed its blockade of Gaza, cutting off all humanitarian aid into the enclave and using the blockade to pressure Hamas into agreeing to a hostage deal.
People demonstrate in solidarity with Palestinians amid the ongoing war in Gaza at an anti-Israel protest in Istanbul, Turkey, Jan. 1, 2025. (Berkman Ulutin/DIA Photo via AP)
Since the war resumed last month, at least 1,691 people have been killed in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says, bringing the overall toll to 51,065. The unverifiable figure does not differentiate between civilians and fighters.
Turkey has been a vocal supporter of Hamas throughout its current war with Israel, which began when several thousand Hamas-led terrorists invaded southern Israel from the Gaza Strip on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages.
Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has called Israel a “terrorist state” and accused it of conducting a “genocide” in Gaza. In December, Erdogan called Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “worse than Hitler,” said the systematic slaughter of six million Jews in the Holocaust was not as bad as Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza, and likened Israel’s treatment of Palestinians in the Strip to that of Jews rounded up in concentration and death camps.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, center, greets attendees upon his arrival to an extraordinary Parliamentary Meeting on Palestinians, at the Turkish Parliament in Ankara, Turkey, Thursday, Aug. 15, 2024. (AP/Ali Unal)
The Turkish leader has been outspoken about his support for Hamas, claiming it is not a terrorist organization but a resistance group.
“No one can make us qualify Hamas as a terrorist organization,” he said in a speech last year. “Turkey is a country that speaks openly with Hamas leaders and firmly backs them.”
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