President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey lashed out at Israel and defended Hamas throughout a televised tackle on Wednesday, taking positions more likely to enhance tensions between his authorities and people of different NATO members, together with the US.
Talking in Parliament to lawmakers from his Justice and Improvement Get together, Mr. Erdogan accused Israel of intentionally attacking civilians in Gaza and killing giant numbers of youngsters, girls and older folks.
“This image alone is sufficient to present that the purpose right here is just not self-defense, however savagery to commit the premeditated act of crime in opposition to humanity,” he stated.
Mr. Erdogan additionally criticized Western international locations for his or her sturdy backing of Israel and for branding Hamas, the armed Palestinian group that controls Gaza, as a terrorist group.
“Hamas is just not a terror group,” he stated. “It is a corporation of liberation, of mujahedeen, who struggle to guard their land and residents.”
Mr. Erdogan’s feedback stand in stark distinction to the stances of Western international locations, which have supplied sturdy help for Israel since Hamas led an assault in southern Israel on Oct. 7 that killed greater than 1,400 folks, most of them civilians, and took greater than 220 others, each civilians and troopers, again to Gaza as captives.
Even earlier than that assault, the US, the European Union and different international locations thought of Hamas a terrorist group.
However Mr. Erdogan’s criticism of Israel’s response — which has included urging greater than one million Gazans to flee to the seaside enclave’s southern half, and a heavy bombing marketing campaign that has closely broken civilian neighborhoods— mirrored sentiments which have turn out to be widespread in elements of the Arab and Muslim worlds. The Israeli bombardment has killed greater than 6,500 folks, in line with Gaza’s Hamas-run Well being Ministry.
Israel has vowed to eradicate Hamas and has been massing its troops on the border of Gaza for a potential floor invasion. Its navy says that it takes precautions to keep away from killing civilians however that Hamas makes this tougher by mixing its forces in with the civilian inhabitants.
Turkey has had turbulent relations with Israel throughout Mr. Erdogan’s twenty years as its dominant politician, usually tied to Mr. Erdogan’s anger over the Israeli remedy of Palestinians.
However just lately, Mr. Erdogan made steps at rapprochement with the Jewish state.
Final yr, Turkey welcomed Israel’s president, Isaac Herzog, in Ankara, the capital, the primary such go to by an Israeli head of state since 2008. In a separate go to, the Israeli protection minister met together with his Turkish counterpart, and the officers vowed to renew working relations.
