Erdoğan says Turkey treating more than 1,000 Hamas members

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said on Monday that more than 1,000 members of the Palestinian Islamist organization Hamas are receiving medical treatment in Turkey.

"In my country, more than 1,000 members of Hamas are currently being treated in our hospitals," Erdoğan said in Ankara at a joint press conference with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis.

Erdoğan once again described Hamas, which is listed as a terrorist organization in Europe, the United States and Israel, as a resistance organization. It is fighting to "protect its own territory and its people," Erdoğan said.

He did not provide further details on where the Hamas members were wounded or how they arrived in Turkey.

Both Erdoğan and Mitsotakis spoke out in favour of a ceasefire, but different points of view also emerged.

Mitsotakis emphasized that his country, like Turkey, supported a two-state solution, but stressed that Israel had every right to defend itself against the bloody attack by terrorists on its territory.

Erdoğan has called Israel a "terror state" and has criticized western support for the Jewish state.

The current Gaza war started after Hamas and other militant groups attacked Israel on October 7, killing 1,200 and taking some 250 hostages. Israel has responded with massive air and ground strike.

It has come under severe international pressure due to the high number of civilian casualties and the catastrophic humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip.

Some 35,000 Palestinians have been killed in the war so far, according to Gaza's Hamas-controlled health authority.

Turkey and Greece had recently decided to mend their strained relations. Erdoğan had only met Mitsotakis in Athens in December, when the two agreed to intensify cooperation in areas such as tourism, trade and migration.