Events in region foreshadow Gaza war escalating into broader maelstrom, warns Turkish foreign minister

ISTANBUL

Current events in the Middle East point to the three-month-old Gaza war widening into something broader, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said on Tuesday.

“It should not be misleading to see that what happened in the Red Sea, Syria, and Iraq foreshadows that the spiral of war in Gaza will gradually turn into a bigger maelstrom,” Fidan told a joint press conference with his Croatian counterpart Gordan Grlic-Radman in the capital Ankara.

Türkiye has said on relevant platforms that there can be no lasting peace in the region without equal security and sovereignty for the Palestinians, Fidan added.

Israel has launched relentless air and ground attacks on the Gaza Strip since a cross-border attack by Hamas which Tel Aviv says killed 1,200 people.

At least 24,285 Palestinians have since been killed, mostly women and children, and 61,154 injured, according to Palestinian health authorities.

According to the UN, 85% of the population of Gaza is already internally displaced amid acute shortages of food, clean water and medicine, while 60% of the enclave’s infrastructure is damaged or destroyed.

• Gaza
• Hakan Fidan