Erdogan calls Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu the "Butcher of Gaza"
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has described Israel's head of government Benjamin Netanyahu as the "butcher of Gaza" and accused him of promoting anti-Semitism. Netanyahu is endangering the security of all Jews worldwide with "the murders he is committing in Gaza", Erdogan said in a televised speech in parliament on Wednesday. Erdogan also accused the Israeli head of government of diminishing hopes "that the humanitarian pause can be transformed into a permanent ceasefire" with his statements about the "annihilation" of Hamas.
Since the brutal attack by the radical Islamic Hamas on Israel on October 7 and the subsequent Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip, the Turkish president has repeatedly attacked Netanyahu's government. Erdogan branded Israel an alleged "terrorist state", while describing Hamas as a "liberation organization".
Erdogan's harsh rhetoric is straining relations between the two countries. Both sides had sent ambassadors to the other country last year after a long diplomatic ice age. They also discussed the development of closer trade relations and work on new energy projects.
The Gaza war prompted Israel to withdraw all its diplomatic staff from Turkey and other countries in the region as a security precaution. Ankara, for its part, withdrew its envoy from Tel Aviv in protest against Israel's actions.
Hundreds of fighters from Hamas, which is classified as a terrorist organization by the USA and the EU, invaded Israel a good seven weeks ago and, according to Israeli figures, killed around 1,200 people and took around 240 prisoners.
In response, Israel massively bombed targets in the Gaza Strip from the air and on the ground for weeks. According to Hamas, which cannot be independently verified, almost 15,000 people have been killed in the Palestinian territory since then. A ceasefire has been in force since Friday, during which Hamas released hostages and Israel released Palestinian prisoners.
Source: www.ntv.de
