GAZA CITY
The Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency (TIKA) on Friday distributed emergency aid supplies to Palestinian families affected by a deadly Israeli air offensive against the Gaza Strip, which has killed at least 100 Palestinians since it began late Monday.
"We distributed food and medical supplies in Gaza worth some $1 million on Friday," Mohamed Mortagi, Gaza representative of the TIKA, told Anadolu Agency.
"The Turkish government is also thinking about supplying certain Gaza localities with fuel to help ease the strip's humanitarian and economic crisis," Mortagi said.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who ordered the aid transfer to Gaza, has condemned Israel's ongoing air campaign, which has so far left at least one hundred Palestinians – mostly civilians – dead.
Israeli warplanes have pounded the Gaza Strip over the past four days as part of a military offensive – dubbed "Operation Protective Edge" – with the stated aim of ending rocket fire from the embattled coastal enclave.
Gaza-based resistance factions, meanwhile, have continued to fire short-range rockets into Israel – without causing any fatalities – in response to the unrelenting airstrikes.
Established in 1992, Turkey's government-run TIKA agency is responsible for implementing Turkey's developmental cooperation policies overseas.
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