ISTANBUL

Israel violates the Gaza ceasefire with "made-up" reasons, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Saturday.

Palestinian group Hamas continues its patient approach to maintain the truce despite the provocations, Erdogan said in a speech during the Science Dissemination Awards ceremony in Istanbul.

International media organizations failed to report on their colleagues' deaths, "while over 270 journalists were killed in Gaza," Erdogan added.

Over 13,500 students, 830 teachers and education staff, and 193 scientists and academics were killed by the Israeli forces, the Turkish president stressed.

"More than 785,000 students have been deprived of their right to education... What is happening is a deliberate, intentional, and planned policy of mass killing," he added.

Expressing Ankara's continued determination to raise these issues, Erdogan said he also brought them up in his discussion in South Africa last week as part of the G20 Leaders' Summit.

Israel has killed nearly 70,000 people, mostly women and children, and injured over 170,000 others in attacks in Gaza since October 2023.

International Day of Solidarity with Palestinian people

In a post on the Turkish social media platform NSosyal, Erdogan also marked the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People.

Extending his greetings to the Palestinians, he said Türkiye is working to deliver humanitarian aid to the Palestinians in Gaza as winter approaches.

Ankara is doing everything possible to keep the ceasefire in place and provide humanitarian aid for a just and lasting peace, Erdogan said.

The president added that Türkiye will "resolutely" continue to defend the two-state solution until a free, sovereign, and independent Palestinian state, based on the 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital, is established.

Observed annually on Nov. 29, the day highlights Palestinian aspirations for peace, justice, and self-determination.

It was established by the UN in 1977, three decades after UN General Assembly resolution 181, which proposed the partition of Palestine into Jewish and Arab states, underscoring the enduring quest for resolution between the two sides.