Hostages freed after being held for nine hours in factory
ISTANBUL
Turkish police on Thursday released seven workers taken hostage by a gunman at a plant near Istanbul owned by U.S. consumer goods giant Procter & Gamble in protest at the war in Gaza.
Local officials said police staged a raid nearly nine hours into the standoff when the lone gunman took a bathroom break.
The man was detained unharmed, local governor Seddar Yavuz told reporters.
"The man's aim was to stop Israel's massacre in Gaza and to open the Rafa gate in Egypt" for the delivery of humanitarian aid for trapped civilians, Yavuz said.
"When he went out for a bathroom break, our security forces carried out an operation without harming the hostages."
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.
In a social media post, the attacker celebrated the birthday of one of the hostages, writing, "Every death is a birth. Hoping for the birth of peace and the opening of the doors of peace."
Yavuz said the man was carrying two guns and appeared to have explosives strapped to his chest, adding that "we had to evaluate every possibility".
Distressed relatives of the hostages who had gathered at the cordoned-off facility broke into applause when informed about their loved ones' release by local officials.
"We are very happy after the tense long hours of waiting," said Fatma Dursun, whose nephew was taken hostage.
Relatives of the hostages initially questioned why the assailant would target workers in Türkiye — a country strongly supportive of the Palestinian cause — to show his solidarity with the people of Gaza.
Following the Oct. 7 attacks, Israel's military launched an offensive that 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.
Türkiye 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.
