Turkey’s president appears to have threatened to intervene in Gaza in an impassioned speech at a pro-Palestine rally this evening. Recep Tayyip Erdogan delivered a speech to a rally this afternoon in which he told attendees Israel was responsible for war crimes, and framed Hamas as “freedom fighters”.

In comments that have prompted Israeli outcry, and led the country to withdraw its diplomatic presence, president Erdogan suggested assaults on Gaza constituted a “massacre”.

In the same speech, he reportedly said that Turkey can “come at any night unexpectedly” to ecstatic reception from hundreds of thousands of attendees.

The footage, which was shown on X, formerly known as Twitter, said the pro-Palestine crowd responded with the chant: “Turkish military to Gaza.”

Footage circulating online was posted by news aggregating account Visegrád 24, and showed Mr Erdogan speaking at the event in Turkish.

Thousands of people are seen waving a combination of Turkish and Palestinian flags from the venue in Istanbul, where he was speaking to people attending the Great Palestine meeting. The account reported the translation earlier this evening, and the video has since been reposted dozens of times.