Then came the lines that will get quoted for weeks. He accused Israel of a “genocidal mindset that can never get enough of killing.” No one guided by “humanity, mercy, or conscience,” he said, could stay silent while watching what’s happening in Gaza.
He called the enclave “the world’s largest children’s cemetery” and “the most inhumane and shameful concentration camp of our time.” He put the death toll at around 74,000 Palestinians over the past three years, most of them women and children, and said Israel’s actions amount to state terrorism.
He didn’t let the ceasefire off the hook either. Turkey helped broker it, with US backing, but Erdoğan said the killing hasn’t stopped. He put the number of Palestinians killed since the ceasefire took effect at more than 1,300, though some outlets reported him citing more than 1,500, a gap that reflects how difficult it is to verify casualty figures in real time.
He also accused Israel of refusing to move into the next phase of the peace process even after Palestinian factions agreed to it.
He spent time on something that gets less attention than the Gaza numbers: Mahmoud Abbas wasn’t in the room. The Palestinian Authority president was denied a US visa for the second year running, missing the Assembly entirely. Erdoğan called that an injustice, and said Turkey would keep speaking for the Palestinian people from the podium, whether or not their own president can show up.
From there, Erdoğan widened the lens. He said the UN itself has become dysfunctional, “bleeding out” not just over Gaza but across Lebanon, Sudan, Ukraine, Myanmar, Darfur, and Iran. Eighty one years after it was founded to keep the peace, he said, the organization is failing at the one job it was built for.
He used part of his speech to renew two positions Turkey brings up almost every year at the UN: recognition of “equal international status” for Turkish Cypriots, and reform of the Security Council so it reflects the world as it looks now, not how it looked in 1945.
The most immediate reaction came from the room itself. Israel’s delegation walked out while Erdoğan was still speaking. Palestinian representatives applauded. Salman Shaikh, a former UN official who has spent time in Gaza, told Al Jazeera the situation there is “very, very dire” and warned that the world can’t let what’s happening in Gaza and the West Bank become normalized.
None of this is likely to change Israeli policy on its own, and Erdoğan knows that. But speeches like this shift what’s politically acceptable to say out loud, and that’s clearly what he was aiming for. Expect more governments to feel pressure to take a public position on Gaza in the coming weeks, and expect the relationship between Ankara and Jerusalem to keep getting colder, not warmer.
Erdoğan stood in front of the UN General Assembly on September 22, 2026, and didn’t hold back. “This is not Tayyip Erdoğan’s personal matter,” he said. “It is a matter of conscience for all of us.”
Then came the lines that will get quoted for weeks. He accused Israel of a “genocidal mindset that can never get enough of killing.” No one guided by “humanity, mercy, or conscience,” he said, could stay silent while watching what’s happening in Gaza.
He called the enclave “the world’s largest children’s cemetery” and “the most inhumane and shameful concentration camp of our time.” He put the death toll at around 74,000 Palestinians over the past three years, most of them women and children, and said Israel’s actions amount to state terrorism.
He didn’t let the ceasefire off the hook either. Turkey helped broker it, with US backing, but Erdoğan said the killing hasn’t stopped. He put the number of Palestinians killed since the ceasefire took effect at more than 1,300, though some outlets reported him citing more than 1,500, a gap that reflects how difficult it is to verify casualty figures in real time.
He also accused Israel of refusing to move into the next phase of the peace process even after Palestinian factions agreed to it.
He spent time on something that gets less attention than the Gaza numbers: Mahmoud Abbas wasn’t in the room. The Palestinian Authority president was denied a US visa for the second year running, missing the Assembly entirely. Erdoğan called that an injustice, and said Turkey would keep speaking for the Palestinian people from the podium, whether or not their own president can show up.
From there, Erdoğan widened the lens. He said the UN itself has become dysfunctional, “bleeding out” not just over Gaza but across Lebanon, Sudan, Ukraine, Myanmar, Darfur, and Iran. Eighty one years after it was founded to keep the peace, he said, the organization is failing at the one job it was built for.
He used part of his speech to renew two positions Turkey brings up almost every year at the UN: recognition of “equal international status” for Turkish Cypriots, and reform of the Security Council so it reflects the world as it looks now, not how it looked in 1945.
The most immediate reaction came from the room itself. Israel’s delegation walked out while Erdoğan was still speaking. Palestinian representatives applauded. Salman Shaikh, a former UN official who has spent time in Gaza, told Al Jazeera the situation there is “very, very dire” and warned that the world can’t let what’s happening in Gaza and the West Bank become normalized.
None of this is likely to change Israeli policy on its own, and Erdoğan knows that. But speeches like this shift what’s politically acceptable to say out loud, and that’s clearly what he was aiming for. Expect more governments to feel pressure to take a public position on Gaza in the coming weeks, and expect the relationship between Ankara and Jerusalem to keep getting colder, not warmer.
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