As the dead toll in Gaza surpassed 34,000, Ismail Haniyeh, the leader of the Palestinian organization Hamas, arrived in Istanbul on Friday evening for talks with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Hamas claimed in a statement on Friday that Erdogan and Haniyeh would talk about the situation in Gaza and that the head of the organization’s political bureau was traveling with a team.
Following Israel’s alleged attack on Iran, tensions in the Middle East are at an all-time high, with Gaza preparing for a fresh Israeli offensive.
Erdogan insisted on Wednesday that he would continue “to defend the Palestinian struggle and to be the voice of the oppressed Palestinian people”.
However, when he spoke with reporters on Friday, he steadfastly declined to comment on specifics of the conversation.
During his visit to Qatar on Wednesday, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan stated that he had “a wide exchange of views in particular about negotiations for a ceasefire” with Haniyeh and his advisers for three hours.
The talks between Qatar, the mediator between Israel and Hamas, to end hostilities in Gaza and release captives were regarded as “stalling” on Wednesday.
Fidan claimed to have spoken with Haniyeh, a resident of Qatar, about the necessity for Hamas to “clearly express its expectations, especially about a two-state solution” given that the group is recognized as a terrorist organization by Israel, the US, and the EU.
Erdogan hosted Haniyeh and Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas at the presidential palace in Ankara in July 2023, which was their final encounter. On January 2, Haniyeh and Fidan had last met in Turkey.
According to an AFP count of official Israeli estimates, the unprecedented strike on Israel by Hamas on October 7 that claimed the lives of roughly 1,170 people, mostly civilians, was the catalyst for the start of the Gaza war.
Some 250 hostages were also taken by Hamas. According to Israel, there are about 129 people detained in Gaza, 34 of them are thought to be dead.
According to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry, at least 34,012 individuals have died as a result of Israel’s retaliatory military operation, the majority of them were women and children.
