The truce, brokered on October 10 by US President Donald Trump to end the two-year-long Israel-Hamas conflict, has been increasingly fragile, challenged by ongoing Israeli strikes and reports of Palestinian attacks on Israeli forces.
Turkey, one of the most vocal critics of Israel’s Gaza offensive, will host the foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Pakistan, and Indonesia in Istanbul on Monday.
These senior diplomats had previously been consulted by Trump in late September during the UN General Assembly in New York, shortly before he unveiled his plan to halt the fighting in Gaza.
According to Turkish foreign ministry sources, Ankara plans to urge the visiting ministers to support measures that would allow Palestinians greater control over Gaza’s security and governance.
On the eve of the meeting, Turkey’s Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan also received a Hamas delegation led by Khalil al-Hayya, the movement’s chief negotiator.
“We must end the massacre in Gaza. A ceasefire in itself is not enough,” Fidan said, arguing for the two-state solution to the intractable Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“We should recognise that Gaza should be governed by the Palestinians, and act with caution,” he added.
Turkey-Israel tensions
Besides its denunciations of Israel, Turkey has been instrumental in backing Hamas. Fidan, who has accused Israel of seeking excuses to break Trump’s truce, is also expected to repeat calls for Israel to allow more humanitarian aid into Gaza, which is wracked by hunger and tens of thousands of deaths from the Israeli army’s offensive.
Yet Israel has long viewed Turkey’s diplomatic overtures, including towards Trump, with suspicion as a result of the country’s closeness to Hamas.
Israeli leaders have repeatedly voiced their opposition to Turkey, a NATO member with one of the region’s most credible militaries, having any role in the international peacekeeping force mooted for Gaza.
Under Trump’s plan, that stabilisation mission is meant to take over in the wake of the Israeli army’s withdrawal from the Palestinian territory.
A Turkish disaster relief team, sent to help efforts to recover the many bodies buried under Gaza’s rubble — including those of Israeli hostages seized by Hamas — has likewise been stuck at the border because of the Israeli government’s refusal to let them in, according to Ankara.
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