Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said yesterday Israel was a “terror state” committing war crimes and violating international law in Gaza, sharpening his repeated criticism of Israeli leaders and their backers in the West.
Speaking two days before a planned visit to Germany to meet Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Erdogan said Israel’s military campaign against Palestinian group Hamas included “the most treacherous attacks in human history” with “unlimited” support from the West.
He called for Israeli leaders to be tried for war crimes at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, and repeated his view — and Turkiye’s position — that Hamas is a political party that won past elections.
Ankara hosts some members of Hamas and supports a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“With the savagery of bombing the civilians it forced out of their homes while they are relocating, it is literally employing state terrorism,” Erdogan said of Israel in parliament. “I am now saying, with my heart at ease, that Israel is a terror state.
“We will never shy away from voicing the truth that Hamas members protecting their lands, honour, and lives in the face of occupation policies are resistance fighters, just because some people are uncomfortable with it,” he said.
Erdogan’s trip to Germany will be his first to a Western nation since Israel began bombarding Gaza in response to Hamas’ storming of Israel.
Germany has expressed strong solidarity with Israel, while urging a focus on limiting the impact of military operations on Gaza’s civilian population. “The West, namely the US, is unfortunately still seeing this issue backwards,” Erdogan said, adding he would call leaders of the countries who last month abstained from a vote at the UN General Assembly on an aid truce in Gaza.
Later yesterday, Erdogan spoke to Italian Prime Minister Georgia Meloni and told her that Ankara expected Rome’s support in achieving a ceasefire in Gaza, the Turkish presidency said. Meloni’s office said she had called for rapid de-escalation in Gaza, adding Turkiye had a crucial role in preventing the spread of the conflict. Erdogan also called on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to announce whether or not Israel had nuclear weapons, adding that Netanyahu would soon be a “goner” from his post.
Ankara would also take steps to ensure Israeli settlers in occupied Palestinian territories are recognised as “terrorists”, he added.
GAZAN CANCER
PATIENTS TO TURKIYE
Turkiye has sent 666 tonnes of humanitarian aid, medicine and medical equipment and a medical team to Egypt for Gazans so far. Ankara has said it is working with Egyptian and Israeli authorities as part of a co-ordination mechanism to bring cancer patients and some wounded civilians to Turkiye for treatment.
Speaking at Egypt’s Al-Arish airport after meeting with his Egyptian counterpart and visiting the hospitals housing wounded Gazans, Turkish Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said 26 patients and their 13 companions would be flown to Turkiye yesterday.
Koca said the 39 people were the first to be brought out to Egypt, and later to another country, since the fighting broke out, adding Ankara wanted to bring as many of the nearly 1,000 cancer patients from Gaza to Turkiye as possible.
Footage shared later by Turkish state media showed Koca and officials greeting the patients as they arrived on stretchers at Al-Arish airport before being put on a plane to Turkiye.