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President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey lashed out at Israel and defended Hamas throughout a televised handle on Wednesday, taking positions prone to improve tensions between his authorities and people of different NATO members, together with america.
Talking in Parliament to lawmakers from his Justice and Improvement Occasion, Mr. Erdogan accused Israel of intentionally attacking civilians in Gaza and killing massive numbers of youngsters, ladies and older individuals.
“This image alone is sufficient to present that the intention right here shouldn’t be self-defense, however savagery to commit the premeditated act of crime towards humanity,” he mentioned.
Mr. Erdogan additionally criticized Western nations for his or her robust backing of Israel and for branding Hamas, the armed Palestinian group that controls Gaza, as a terrorist group.
“Hamas shouldn’t be a terror group,” he mentioned. “It is a company 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 nations, which have supplied robust assist for Israel since Hamas led an assault in southern Israel on Oct. 7 that killed greater than 1,400 individuals, most of them civilians, and took greater than 220 others, each civilians and troopers, again to Gaza as captives.
Even earlier than that assault, america, the European Union and different nations thought-about Hamas a terrorist group.
However Mr. Erdogan’s criticism of Israel’s response — which has included urging greater than 1,000,000 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 into frequent in components of the Arab and Muslim worlds. The Israeli bombardment has killed greater than 6,500 individuals, based on 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 doable floor invasion. Its army 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, typically tied to Mr. Erdogan’s anger over the Israeli therapy of Palestinians.
However not too long ago, 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.
And final month, throughout the United Nations Normal Meeting in New York, Mr. Erdogan met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel for the primary time; the 2 leaders agreed to go to one another’s nations, Mr. Netanyahu’s workplace mentioned.
On Wednesday, Mr. Erdogan mentioned all plans to go to Israel had been scrapped.
Mr. Erdogan has additionally maintained ties to Hamas. Members of the group typically spend time in Turkey, and plenty of of its leaders had been in Turkey for conferences when the Hamas assault on Israel occurred on Oct. 7.
Though Hamas is devoted to the destruction of Israel, Mr. Erdogan on Wednesday mentioned that he had no challenge with Israel as a rustic and that he condemned the killing of civilians in all circumstances. “We clearly talked about that we by no means excuse any acts concentrating on civilians, together with Israeli civilians, whatever the perpetrator,” he mentioned.
However he accused Israel of attacking Gaza with a ferocity much less like that of a state than that of an “group,” utilizing a Turkish phrase that’s usually used to explain terrorist teams.
Israel’s Overseas Ministry on Wednesday mentioned it “wholeheartedly rejected” Mr. Ergodan’s feedback. “Hamas is a despicable terrorist group worse than ISIS that brutally and deliberately murders infants, kids, ladies and the aged, takes civilians hostage and makes use of its personal individuals as human shields,” Lior Haiat, a spokesman for the ministry, mentioned, including that the Turkish chief’s “inciting phrases is not going to change the horrors that the entire world has seen.”
Mr. Erdogan’s departure from the place of a lot of the West on the battle in Gaza comes towards a backdrop of variations together with his NATO allies on Russia. Whereas Turkey condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine final yr, it has refused to associate with Western sanctions aimed toward weakening the Russian conflict machine, and Mr. Erdogan has continued to fulfill with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, even referring to him as “my good friend.”
Mr. Erdogan accused the West of a double normal for not condemning Israel’s killing of civilians in Gaza in the identical means it has Russia’s killing of civilians in Ukraine.
“It’s hypocrisy that those that set the world on hearth simply yesterday due to losses within the conflict in Ukraine are blind to this specific bloodbath in Gaza,” he mentioned.
Nadav Gavrielov contributed reporting from Seoul.
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