President of Turkey Recep Erdogan on Friday compared the dire conditions in Palestine and Lebanon to the sufferings witnessed during the Hitler and Pol Pot periods.
The president delivered a speech at the 2026 Mevlid-i Nebi Haftası (The Week of the Prophet’s Birth) opening ceremony at the Istanbul Haliç Congress Center.
Gaza and the West Bank—two separate Palestinian territories—and Southern Lebanon are facing severe humanitarian crises amid ongoing occupation by the Israeli military.
Decrying the situation, Erdogan recalled how millions of people from diverse backgrounds and faiths were “subjected to genocide” in Hitler’s concentration camps and Pol Pot’s killing fields.
“Humanity at that time did nothing but watch what was happening,” the Turkish premier said. “The same mistake is being repeated in Gaza, the West Bank, and Lebanon.”
The leader criticized the international community for not showing the necessary reaction to the “genocidal network’s policies” that recognize no rules, law, principles, values, or limits.
According to Erdogan, many countries and global institutions have not demonstrated “a strong will to prevent massacres today, just as they failed to do so yesterday.”
The president emphasized that in Palestine, millions of civilians are struggling to survive under challenging conditions due to a lack of basic necessities.
In Lebanon, he noted, 1.3 million people have fled their homes because of Israeli attacks, with over 4,000 dead, and more than 12,000, including children and women, injured.
Erdogan posited that the “current war-addicted government” in Israel is trying every kind of provocation to destabilize the entire region, starting with its neighbors.
“The radical ideology called Zionism is not only targeting the peace of its neighbors,” he warned. “It is also targeting everyone who defends regional peace and humanitarian values.”
Erdogan likens crises in Palestine, Lebanon to Hitler-Pol Pot eras