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President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey lashed out at Israel and defended Hamas throughout a televised tackle on Wednesday, taking positions prone to improve 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 kids, girls and older individuals.
“This image alone is sufficient to present that the goal right here isn’t 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 robust backing of Israel and for branding Hamas, the armed Palestinian group that controls Gaza, as a terrorist group.
“Hamas isn’t a terror group,” he stated. “It is a company of liberation, of mujahedeen, who battle to guard their land and residents.”
Mr. Erdogan’s feedback stand in stark distinction to the stances of Western international locations, 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, 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 develop into frequent in elements 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 lately, Mr. Erdogan made steps at rapprochement with the Jewish state.
Final 12 months, 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 along with his Turkish counterpart, and the officers vowed to renew working relations.
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