ANKARA, January 29. /TASS/. Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan believes that the situation in the Gaza Strip may turn to catastrophe with two million people dying unless the global community steps up and takes action, he said at a press conference in Albania, where he is on an official visit.

"Humanitarian aid and medical supplies are not allowed into Gaza. This is a harbinger of a major catastrophe within the Strip. I call on the international community to do all it can to prevent the annihilation of the two million people who have been held hostage by famine and epidemics," he said, as broadcast by the Anadolu agency.

What is currently happening in Gaza is "a tragedy on another scale," he said. "If we do not immediately start preventing it, it may become too late. If, in addition to the bombs, people there begin to die of hunger and disease, it will become a great moral burden that the globe will not be able to bear," he added.

The Middle East situation dramatically escalated after the Hamas militants entered Israeli territory from the Gaza Strip on October 7, 2023, killing border residents and taking hostages. The radical movement labeled the attack a retaliation to the Israeli authorities' actions against the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. Israel announced a total blockade of Gaza and started striking the Strip and certain areas in Lebanon and Syria before launching a ground operation in the enclave. The West Bank is also experiencing fighting.