Police free seven hostages taken by armed man at P&G factory in Turkey

Turkish police on Thursday released a group of hostages taken by a pro-Palestinian gunman at a plant near Istanbul owned by US consumer goods giant Procter & Gamble, a local official said.

“When he went out for a bathroom break, our security forces carried out an operation without harming the hostages,” local governor Seddar Yavuz told reporters, adding that the assailant had been detained.

A union representing the sprawling complex on the industrial eastern outskirts of Turkey’s largest city said the man had been holding seven people after allowing the others to escape.

A police spokesman could not confirm the figure to AFP and the US embassy in Ankara referred all queries to Turkish officials.

“Earlier today, we evacuated our Gebze facility and are working with local authorities to resolve an urgent security situation,” P&G said in a statement .

Photos and videos of the assailant shared online by one of the hostages and verified showed a man — his face hidden by a Palestinian scarf — holding a gun with what appeared to be a suicide vest strapped to his chest.

He was standing next to a drawing of the Palestinian flag and the words “the door will be opened for Gaza” painted on the wall in red.

‘I can only pray’

Relatives of the hostages questioned why the assailant would target workers in Turkey — a country strongly supportive of the Palestinian cause — to show his solidarity with the people of Gaza.

“He supposedly does this for Islam, but they are the ones who harm Islam the most,” Sedat Degirmenci, whose son-in-law had been taken hostage, told AFP.

“If you do this for Palestine, go and fight there,” added Cigdem Aydemir, the mother of a 26-year-old woman taken hostage at the plant.

Like other relatives, Aydemir was following the hostage-taker’s Instagram account for updates about the situation.

The account became inaccessible by Thursday evening.

“What does my daughter have to do with this?” said Aydemir. “I can only pray.”

The war in Gaza was triggered by Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel that resulted in the deaths of around 1,140 people, mostly civilians.

Militants also seized about 250 hostages. Israel says 132 remain in Gaza, including at least 29 people who are believed to have been killed.

Following the deadliest attack in Israel’s history, its military launched an offensive on Gaza. It has killed at least 27,019 people in Gaza, most of them women and children, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.

Erdogan criticism

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has emerged as one of the Muslim world’s harshest critics of Israel because of the massive civilian death toll from its campaign against Hamas militants.

He has branded Israel a “terrorist state” and compared Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Adolf Hitler.

Erdogan has also accused the United States of supporting “genocide” in Gaza.

Erdogan’s comments reflect widespread anger across the predominantly Muslim but officially secular country at the United States for its traditional support for Israel.

Hundreds of protesters stormed a southeastern Turkish air base used by US and British forces on the eve of US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s visit to Ankara in November.

Turkish online campaigns are also trying to organize boycotts of US products such as Coca-Cola and the coffee chain Starbucks.