Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the proposals put forward by the new US administration regarding Gaza, due to pressure from the Zionist Lobby, have no worth from our perspective. They are futile efforts. No one has the power to expel Gazans from their eternal homeland. Palestine belongs to Palestinians. Erdogan’s statement comes in response to U.S. President Donald Trump’s continued advocacy for policies that pushes to ethnically cleanse Palestinians from Gaza and illegally annex the territory, acts that are antithesis to violate international law.
“No one has the power to remove Gazans from their eternal homeland that has been around for thousands of years, Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem belong to the Palestinians,” he told during press conference, dismissing Donald Trump’s plan to remove the Palestinians and let the US take control.
He has been a vocal advocate for Palestinian rights, consistently condemning Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza and calling for international action to end the occupation. His stance has been rooted in a broader regional policy of supporting Palestinian aspirations for statehood and sovereignty. Erdogan’s position aligns with Turkey’s broader foreign policy, which has been supportive of Palestinian aspirations, while also positioning Turkey as a regional leader advocating for Palestinian rights in the Middle East.
Erdogan with late Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh
Donald Trump’s proposal to use US troops to expel Palestinians from their lands in Gaza is considered to be ethnic cleansing and a blatant violation of international humanitarian laws. Even Trump’s closest allies condemned it, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz called US President Donald Trump’s plans to displace nearly two million Palestinians and take over Gaza to build a “Riviera of the Middle East” a “scandal” and against international law. The US president announced his proposal at a joint news conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who hailed it as “the first good idea that I’ve heard” on what to do with the tiny war-torn territory.
Prince Turki Al-Faisal, former director general of the Saudi intelligence agency, wrote a letter to US President Donald Trump after his call to ethically cleanse Palestinians from Gaza, telling him that “The Palestinian people are not illegal immigrants to be deported to other lands.”
“Most of the people of Gaza are refugees, driven out of their homes in what is now Israel and the West Bank by the previous Israeli genocidal assault on them in the 1948 and 1967 wars. If they are to be moved from Gaza, they should be allowed to return to their homes and to their orange and olive groves in Haifa, Jaffa and other towns and villages from which they fled or were forcibly driven out by the Israelis,” he added.
After 15 months of relentless genocide and terror, and following sixty consecutive weeks of destruction and bombardment that has massacred more than 61,700 innocent lives. Palestinians were on Sunday able to cross the Netzarim Corridor, a strategic zone cutting the narrow territory in two, after Israeli troops were said to have withdrawn under the terms of the truce that took effect on January 19.
