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Türkiye will utilize the United Nations General Assembly this month to press for Israel’s diplomatic and economic isolation, including a suspension of its participation in U.N. proceedings and a halt to arms shipments, over its war on the Gaza Strip, according to officials in Ankara.
Türkiye will deliver three key messages at the gathering of world leaders in New York on Sept. 9: Israel should be barred from the U.N. General Assembly, weapons transfers and trade must stop, and ports and airspace should be closed to Israeli shipments.
Currently, the U.S. is Israel’s largest arms supplier, accounting for approximately 66% of Israel’s weapons imports between 2020 and 2024, followed by Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom.
Türkiye, which has already cut off trade with Israel worth $7 billion annually and blocks ships and aircraft carrying arms for Israel from using its ports and airspace, will urge other countries to adopt similar measures.
The restrictions by Türkiye cover all Israel-related cargo, including transshipment containers, meaning that no goods bound for or coming from Israel will be handled at Turkish ports.
Officials say Türkiye will coordinate with governments that share similar policies, taking “planned and systematic” steps to halt what it calls the genocide in Gaza. They say Ankara will continue to press its case through legal, diplomatic, intelligence, economic, and political channels.
Israel’s offensive has killed more than 63,000 Palestinians, most of them children and women, according to figures from the local health authorities, which the U.N. considers reliable.
Most of the roughly 2 million inhabitants in the Palestinian enclave have been displaced, many areas have been reduced to rubble and the population faces the threat of famine.
Türkiye also plans to highlight the urgency of humanitarian aid to Palestinians, citing growing support worldwide for recognizing a Palestinian state.
Currently, 150 countries recognize Palestine, while the United Kingdom, France, Canada, Malta, New Zealand, Portugal and Austria have expressed their intention to do so. Ankara is expected to align with countries moving in that direction at the General Assembly.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan have repeatedly raised the issue since Oct. 7, 2023, using bilateral meetings and international forums to argue for a two-state solution. Turkish officials say “concrete facts” will be laid out at the U.N. to mobilize the international community.
Scholars determine genocide
Israel, which currently faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice, is committing genocide in Gaza, the largest professional organization of scholars studying genocide said Monday.
The determination by the International Association of Genocide Scholars, which has around 500 members worldwide, including a number of Holocaust experts, could serve to isolate Israel in global public opinion further and add to a growing chorus of organizations that have used the term for Israel’s actions in Gaza. Israel has repeatedly rejected the accusation.
“Israel’s policies and actions in Gaza meet the legal definition of genocide,” as well as crimes against humanity and war crimes, according to the group’s resolution, which was supported by 86% of those who voted. The organization did not release the specifics of the voting.
“People who are experts in the study of genocide can see this situation for what it is,” Melanie O’Brien, the organization’s president and a professor of international law at the University of Western Australia, told The Associated Press (AP).
Genocide was codified in a 1948 convention drawn up after the horrors of the Holocaust that defines it as acts “committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.” The U.N. and many Western countries have said that only a court can determine whether the crime has been committed.
Supporters of Israel, which has massacred thousands under the pretext of fighting Hamas in Gaza, have claimed its powerful military could kill far more Palestinians if it wanted to. Genocide scholars say there is no numerical threshold for the crime.
In July, two prominent Israeli rights groups, B’Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, said their country is committing genocide in Gaza. The organizations do not reflect mainstream thinking in Israel, but they marked the first time that local Jewish-led organizations have made such accusations.
