Turkey has hit back at Israel after the Israeli Foreign Ministry attacked President Recep Tayyip Erdogan over his speech at the COP31 climate summit in Antalya, where he described the war in Gaza as both "genocide" and "ecocide".

Erdogan was speaking on Wednesday, 11 November, at the leaders' summit of the United Nations climate conference, known as COP31, in Antalya. He said the destruction in Gaza had affected the territory's environment, agriculture and essential infrastructure, and called on Israel to allow more humanitarian aid into Gaza.

"What has taken place in Gaza is not only a genocide, but it is also an ecocide," Erdogan said, drawing applause from the audience. He said centuries-old olive trees had been cut down, soil and water polluted, and cities reduced to piles of rubble.

Erdogan also said Israel had not allowed the delivery of prefabricated housing units to Gaza, leaving Palestinians in tents amid mud and flooding after heavy rain. "Our Palestinian brothers and sisters in Gaza are condemned to live in tents unfortunately, amid mud everywhere," he said, adding that tens of thousands of tents and shelters had been inundated.

Israel accused Erdogan of spreading lies

Israel's Foreign Ministry responded in a post on X, accusing Erdogan of "using an international forum to push his anti-Israel campaign of lies" and of supporting Hamas. "Those who truly care about Gaza should demand that Hamas disarm so reconstruction can begin," the statement said. Israel was not invited to COP31.

The ministry's post, dated 11 November, also said Hamas, whose leaders are hosted in Erdogan's Turkey, was responsible for the devastation in Gaza, and that Hamas had started the war with the 7 October attacks and embedded its military infrastructure in civilian areas.

Erdogan has been an outspoken critic of Israel, while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called him an antisemitic "tyrant", saying in September at the UN General Assembly that Turkey had become "the latest country to become a superspreader of antisemitic lies".

Ankara said Israel was trying to hide the truth

Turkey's Foreign Ministry answered on Wednesday, saying Israel was trying to cover up its actions and evade accountability. "The Israeli Foreign Ministry's despicable and outrageous slanders against our president represent yet another example of Israeli officials' futile efforts to conceal the truth," the ministry said.

The ruling AK Party's spokesman, Ömer Çelik, echoed the statement on Thursday, saying in a social media post that "members of the genocide network" had no right to target Erdogan and would "fail anyway to hide their crimes against humanity". He added: "We will never take a step back from standing with people of Palestine and for truth."

Burhanettin Duran, head of the Turkish Presidency's Directorate of Communications, also responded on Thursday, saying Israel had resorted to insults and propaganda instead of facing what he called the genocide and ecological disaster in Gaza.

The environmental damage in Gaza

A 2025 report by the UN Environment Programme outlined the scale of the damage to Gaza's environment since the war began. Remote sensing assessments showed that by May 2025, more than 97 per cent of tree crops, 82 per cent of annual crops, 95 per cent of shrubland and 89 per cent of grass and fallow land had been damaged.

"As of now, our families only have 3% of cropland to use, and that is assuming it's distributed across 2 million Palestinians" in Gaza, said Mohammed Usrof, co-founder and executive director of the Palestinian Institute for Climate Strategy.

The report said the territory's ability to dispose of garbage, treat sewage and deliver clean water had been virtually decimated, and that the conflict had "all but eliminated" fishing livelihoods, with marine ecosystems contaminated by munitions, sewage and solid waste. Ghiwa Nakat, executive director at Greenpeace MENA, warned that contaminated soil and groundwater, destroyed ecosystems and the collapse of essential environmental infrastructure could undermine public health, food security and livelihoods for generations.

A UN-backed panel of independent experts concluded last year that Israel had committed genocide in Gaza. Israel vehemently denies the allegation and has accused the panel of antisemitism. Israel launched its offensive following the 7 October 2023 attacks by Hamas-led militants in southern Israel, which killed around 1,200 people and saw 251 others taken hostage. The offensive has killed more than 74,000 people, according to local health authorities, who do not distinguish between civilians and combatants but say women and children make up nearly half of the dead.

In recent days, heavy rain and flooding have destroyed many of the tents and makeshift shelters displaced Palestinians live in. At least four people were killed earlier this week when a sand embankment collapsed on a shelter. Humanitarian aid enters Gaza, but imports remain far below pre-war levels, and many items remain blocked by Israel.