26.12.2025 18:00
Emine Erdoğan, the wife of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, attended the opening of the "Kalanlar" Palestine Exhibition held at the Historical Stone Mansion, where Kalyon Culture is located in Nişantaşı. The exhibition was organized in collaboration with the Kalyon Foundation and the Turkish Red Crescent, aiming to make the dignified resistance born from the destruction in Gaza visible through the language of art.
Emine Erdoğan, the wife of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, attended the opening of the "Kalanlar" Palestine Exhibition organized in collaboration with the Kalyon Foundation and the Turkish Red Crescent.
Emine Erdoğan thanked the Kalyon Foundation for bringing to life and hosting a valuable exhibition that touches on charity.
Expressing her great appreciation for the fact that a donation will be made to the "Breath for Palestine" campaign that the Red Crescent will launch today on behalf of every guest visiting the exhibition, Emine Erdoğan stated that Gaza's place on the world map is not even the size of a pinhead.
"THE CENTER OF PAINS" Emine Erdoğan said, "Its area is only 365 square kilometers, roughly the size of the Beykoz district, but this palm-sized place has become the center of the most bloody, most brutal, and most systematic genocide in history, with pains that no conscience can bear."
Emine Erdoğan conveyed that Israel has dropped more than 200,000 tons of bombs on Gaza in two years, which is equivalent to 14 times the destruction caused by the bomb dropped on Hiroshima during World War II. She stated, "In two years, approximately 20,000 children and more than 70,000 people have been killed in Gaza. More than 56,000 children have been orphaned, and 2,700 families have been wiped out. 13,500 students, 830 teachers, 193 academics, and over 1,500 healthcare workers have been killed. Due to Israel's ban on food and medicine imports, more than 12,000 pregnant women have miscarried. It is easy to say these figures, but we know that each number is made up of the cries of the rising souls, the screams for help, the tears, and the blood of the innocents watering the ground."
"NOW EVERYWHERE IN GAZA IS A SCHOOL" Emine Erdoğan pointed out that there are no schools, hospitals, agricultural areas, sufficient food, or clean drinking water in Gaza today, emphasizing that despite this great destruction, there are still 2 million people left, who are struggling to survive under incredibly difficult conditions to keep Gaza alive.
Emine Erdoğan continued: "The late Palestinian poet Rifat al-Arir says in one of his poems: 'If I must die/You must live/To tell my story.' This is our duty. To tell the story of those who remain, to raise our voices for the enforcement of international law and to stop this oppression as soon as possible. Humanity's heart must not remain silent until it beats together with babies shivering from the cold, the sick, the disabled, and the elderly in makeshift tents in the middle of winter. Just last week, we all witnessed how the flood disaster deepened the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Even in this situation, Palestinian mothers, those brave women, are teaching their children with books and notebooks in hand, overcoming all impossibilities. Perhaps there are no schools with four walls left in Gaza, but now everywhere there is a school."
"THE ARTIST WHO LOST HIS PAINTING MATERIALS NOW DEPICTS HUNGER WITH THE SOOT OF POTS THAT NO LONGER BOIL" Emine Erdoğan explained that despite the destruction of 1,244 mosques, the calls to prayer have not ceased, and when prayer time comes, everyone reads the call to prayer from a corner, stating, "The long Ramadan tables set up among the piles of rubble, the colorful flags and lanterns hanging from the ropes stretched over the debris turn into a challenge, shouting, 'You took everything from us, but you could not take our will to live.' Weddings held amidst the ruins become the noblest resistance of a people refusing to be destroyed. Babies born among the bombs turn into the verses 'There was a Palestine, and there is still a Palestine.' Artists do not remain silent either. The artist who lost his painting materials now depicts hunger with the soot of pots that no longer boil. He breaks the perception games with the undeniable reality of art, drawing women whose milk has dried up from hunger and children who faint in Gaza, where 'there is no hunger and famine.'
"LET HANZALA'S ANIMOSITY END" Emine Erdoğan reported that a female agricultural engineer has established a purification system that converts seawater into drinking water, stating that this person has broken the embargo with knowledge.
Emine Erdoğan emphasized that everyone is resisting with whatever they can, saying, "The Palestinians living in the center of these burning pains, which we find hard to even look at when reflected on our television screens, say with a living faith, 'Allah is sufficient for us. He is the best disposer of affairs.' That is why they still carry the keys to their homes around their necks. They are patient to one day open the doors of their homes again with those keys. They believe in a Gaza that will rise from its ashes. We believe too. That is why we must be one with those who remain, shoulder their burdens, and be a part of this hope and resistance. We must do this so that Hanzala's animosity ends and he turns his face to us."
Emine Erdoğan emphasized that Israel's goal is not just to take land, stating, "The real aim is to cleanse the land of Palestine from the Palestinian identity. Therefore, they deliberately target not only people but also the national memory, the children who will build the future, and the human resources that will take years to develop. That is why we must create memory and inscribe this memory into poems, paintings, novels, and films. This is the only way to break Israel's cultural embargo, which suppresses every voice with the label of 'anti-Semitism' and places checkpoints and barbed wires in the mental maps of Palestine. Think about it, if the film 'The Voice of Hind Receb' had not been made, that little girl would have been lost in the sentence 'More than 70,000 people were killed in Israeli massacres.' We would never have felt the horror of a six-year-old child being shot at 335 times in the vehicle he was waiting to be rescued."
"DEFENDING PALESTINE IS DEFENDING OUR RIGHT TO BE HUMAN" Emine Erdoğan stated, "If the Palestinian director Basel Adra, whom we hosted in our country recently, had not made the documentary 'No Other Land,' it would not have been possible for the Palestinian people to tell the tragedy they have been living for over 70 years in their own voice to the world. That is why, from now on, if a single bird's wing is broken in Palestine, if a single leaf of a tree is plucked, or if a single flower withers, it must definitely become a subject of art," she said.
"Frankly, I believe that museums of Palestine, which have a wide narrative from history to culture, from art to gastronomy, should be established in the capitals of the world."
Emine Erdoğan, stating that "the issue is as much about what a people experiences as it is about what humanity remembers and forgets," said that selective and prejudiced behavior is observed in moral approaches.
Emine Erdoğan pointed out that they have witnessed a shameful double standard, noting: "The international community needs to understand this reality very well: If today children can be shot at, if babies condemned to hunger are dying from crying, if women are struggling in poverty and helplessness, if patients are dying from lack of medicine, if men are subjected to unspeakable torture in Israeli prisons, and if all of this can happen in front of the world's eyes, then no one in the world is safe anymore. Because Gaza has become a testing ground for how the Zionists can systematically trample on universal values and international law. If this tyranny is not restrained, it is unfortunately not far-fetched that the same oppression will be staged again in another geography of the world, with another justification. Therefore, defending Palestine is to defend not only the Palestinians but all of humanity, the values that sustain it, and foremost, our right to remain human."
PALESTINIAN DISHES WERE SERVED AT THE EXHIBITION After the opening, Emine Erdoğan visited the exhibition and gathered information, and in the experiential area titled "Don't Just Look at This Pot - Use It," she painted a pot carrying the message "Be a Hope for Palestine" with soot.
In the installation area of the exhibition, "Messages Left from Hanzala," Emine Erdoğan wrote in the notebook: "One day, Palestine will be a land of peace again, and the doves will carry this good news to all children. Until that day, you will always be in our prayers, and we will always be by your side."
Emine Erdoğan also left a message in the exhibition's memory book, writing: "I was very happy to visit the 'Kalanlar Palestine Exhibition.' Despite the oppression that the Palestinian people have faced for over 70 years, this exhibition reflects their dignified and honorable resistance with a strong and striking narrative, reminding us once again that patience, struggle, and faith are an unbreakable wrist, refreshing humanity's hopes. I wish for Palestine to soon attain a future worthy of peace, justice, and human dignity, and I wholeheartedly congratulate the Kalyon Foundation for such a successful endeavor."
A LARGE NUMBER OF NAMES ATTENDED The opening ceremony was attended by the Palestinian Ambassador to Ankara, Nasri Abu Jaish, Turkish Red Crescent President Prof. Dr. Fatma Meriç Yılmaz, Kalyon Holding Chairman Cemal Kalyoncu, Kalyon Holding Vice Chairman Lütfi Elvan, and board members Mehmet Kalyoncu, Haluk Kalyoncu, Kübra Kalyoncu, and Murathan Kalyoncu.
The exhibition, consisting of 6 different installations and an experiential area in 6 different rooms at Kalyon Culture, will continue until March 30.
Additionally, the exhibition, curated by Muhammed Şems İbrahimhakkıoğlu, Emine Karabulut, and Enes Hakan Tokyay, features installation names such as "Messages Left from Hanzala," "Messages Left from the Labyrinth," "Only Names Remain," "Behind the Remains: Only Names Change," "Hunger in Gaza Turned into a Painter's Canvas and Genocide: The Silent Form of Hunger," and "Messages Left from Education," while the experiential area is titled "Don't Just Look at This Pot - Use It."
To draw attention to the events in Palestine, Palestinian soup, Palestinian bagels, olives, and dates were served. The program concluded with a family photo being taken.