Pro-Gaza protests in Turkey target Israeli consulate, McDonald's

Ezgi Akin

Oct 18, 2023

10/18/2023, Istanbul, Turkey. Protesters demonstrate in front of the Israeli Consulate after an explosion at a hospital in Gaza killed hundreds on October 17, 2023, in Istanbul, Turkey. Subsequently, protesters clash with police. (Photo by Ilker Eray / Middle East Images / Middle East Images via AFP) (Photo by ILKER ERAY/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images) — Protesters demonstrate in front of the Israeli Consulate after an explosion at a hospital in Gaza killed hundreds on Oct. 17, 2023, in Istanbul, Turkey. — ILKER ERAY/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images

ANKARA — The Turkish government announced Wednesday that it will observe three days of mourning in solidarity with Palestinians amid mounting outrage in Turkey at Israeli and Western franchises over a Gaza hospital bombing, the deadliest so far in the 12-day-old conflict between Hamas and Israel.

Israelis and Palestinians have traded blame over the bombing of Gaza's al-Ahli hospital late Tuesday that killed hundreds of civilians in the building.

As images of the victims inundated social media, thousands took to the streets across Turkey in the early hours of Wednesday including in the country’s largest city Istanbul, the capital Ankara and Diyarbakir, the largest city in the Kurdish-majority southeast of the country.

Crowds gathered near the Israeli Embassy in Ankara and its consulate in Istanbul as well as around the Incirlik airbase in the southern province of Adana, which hosts US troops. Waving Palestinian flags, they chanted, “Damn Israel and its collaborator US.”