Hundreds of Turks demonstrated outside Israeli and United Nations missions in Istanbul and Ankara overnight, protesting Israel's ground offensive in Gaza, CNN Turk news channel reported on Sunday.
In Turkey's biggest city of Istanbul, some 750 people, carrying Turkish and Israeli flags, marched to the Israeli consulate in the city's European side, chanted slogans and burned Israeli flags, said the report.
Some of the protestors were detained when they tried to scale the fence around the building, added the report.
In the capital city Ankara, protestors from a minor nationalist group gathered outside the U.N. mission, shouting "Damn Israel" and throwing snowballs at the building, said the report, adding that the group also went to the Israeli embassy, reciting passages from the Koran to commemorate Palestinians killed in Israel's offensive.
According to the report, a minor Islamist party is set to hold a demonstration in Istanbul later Sunday to protest the assault on Gaza. Thousands of people are expected to attend the demonstration.
Turkey's Foreign Ministry issued a statement on Sunday, condemning the Israeli ongoing air and ground offensive on the Gaza Strip and reiterated a call for an immediate end to the military operation there.
"We condemn and find it unacceptable that Israel has begun a ground operation (in Gaza) in spite of the warnings and reactions from the international community," said the statement.
The statement also called on the United Nations to take necessary steps to bring the situation under control.
Israeli troops, backed by columns of tanks, warplanes and gunboats, fanned out across Gaza after nightfall Saturday, bisecting the coastal territory in two and widening an 8-day-old aerial onslaught meant to quench rocket and mortar fire on southern Israel. At least 460 Palestinians were killed in the Israeli offensive.
Source:Xinhua
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