Erdogan Tells UN Gaza Is a 'Concentration Camp,' Skips Any Mention of Hamas or Oct. 7

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan spent much of his Tuesday, September 22 address to the United Nations General Assembly in New York attacking Israel over its conduct in the Gaza war, calling the territory "the most inhumane and shameful concentration camp of our time," according to the Jerusalem Post and Türkiye's own Daily Sabah.

Israel's delegation, led by envoy Danny Danon, stood up and walked out of the hall as Erdogan spoke, while the Palestinian delegation applauded, according to Saudi outlet Ajel News.

What Erdogan Said

Erdogan told the assembly that more than 74,000 people in Gaza, "most of them women and children," have been killed over the past three years, and that over 1,500 Palestinians died even after the ceasefire brokered with involvement from President Donald Trump and Türkiye, according to Daily Sabah and Türkiye Today. A separate summary from Ground News cited a lower post-ceasefire death toll of roughly 1,300 civilians, an inconsistency in reported figures across outlets that none of the sources reconciled.

Erdogan called Gaza "the world's largest graveyard for children" and said it has the highest rate of child amputees in the world, adding that more than 70% of hospital generators in the enclave were out of service due to fuel shortages, per Daily Sabah. He also cited UN figures, referenced by Ground News, showing 84% of structures in Gaza were damaged or destroyed as of October 2025.

He accused Israel of operating under a "genocidal mentality" with an "insatiable appetite for killing," and said the West Bank is experiencing its worst period of Israeli settler violence, according to Daily Sabah and Türkiye Today. Erdogan also said Israel was restricting Muslim and Christian access to holy sites in Jerusalem and warned against efforts to dismantle UNRWA, the UN's Palestinian refugee agency.

Abbas, Statehood and UN Reform

Erdogan noted that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas was denied a U.S. visa and could not attend the assembly for a second consecutive year, calling it "an injustice against our Palestinian brothers and sisters" and pledging Türkiye would keep serving as "the voice of a free and sovereign state of Palestine," per the Jerusalem Post. Abbas was elected to a four-year presidential term in 2005 and has held office without another election since, a fact Breitbart flagged in its coverage.

Erdogan called on countries that haven't recognized a Palestinian state to reconsider, and separately demanded reform of the UN Security Council, arguing a system where "the will of more than 190 countries is subject to the whims of five countries" lacks legitimacy, according to the Jerusalem Post.

Ajel News reported Erdogan also claimed Hamas, which he referred to only as the "Palestinian resistance," had agreed to move into the second phase of Trump's Gaza peace plan, while accusing Israel's government of refusing to halt what he called its occupation.

What He Left Out

Across every version of the speech captured by these sources, Erdogan did not mention Hamas by name or reference the October 7, 2023 attack on Israeli civilians that started the war. Breitbart's coverage was the only one to explicitly flag this omission, framing Erdogan as ignoring "the terrorists who launched the conflict." The other outlets, including the Jerusalem Post, Daily Sabah, Ajel News and Türkiye Today, reported his remarks on Gaza's toll without noting the absence.

Israel disputes the genocide characterization outright. The Jerusalem Post noted plainly that "Israel denies accusations of genocide," a rebuttal that appeared nowhere in the Turkish-state-aligned coverage from Daily Sabah or Türkiye Today.

Breitbart also raised Turkey's own history, noting Erdogan's government does not recognize the Armenian genocide, in which an estimated 1.5 million of the Ottoman Empire's roughly 2 million Armenians were killed during World War I, a mass killing widely documented by historians and recognized as genocide by numerous governments, including the United States since 2021. Erdogan's speech did not address Türkiye's own military interventions in northern Syria or its decades-long occupation of northern Cyprus following its 1974 invasion, though none of the seven sources reviewed here raised those specific episodes directly.

What's Unresolved

Erdogan's death toll figures come from Gaza's Hamas-run Health Ministry, a body whose casualty accounting methodology has faced scrutiny from independent researchers, though none of the sources here challenged the specific 74,000 figure directly. No international tribunal has issued a genocide finding against Israel tied to this war. Whether the U.S.-brokered ceasefire holds, and whether Hamas actually agrees to disarm under the "second phase" of Trump's plan that Erdogan referenced, remains an open question as the Trump administration continues separate mediation efforts with Iran and other Middle East parties on the sidelines of the same General Assembly session, according to CNN's live coverage of the UN gathering.