Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has condemned the assassination of Hamas’ political leader in an airstrike in Iran, as tensions within NATO flare.
It comes after the terror group’s head Ismail Haniyeh was killed in Tehran in what is widely believed to be an Israeli attack.
In a post on X, Erdoğan lauded the “noble resistance” of Gaza against Israel as he branded the assassination “perfidious” – or deceitful and untrustworthy – comparing it to attacks on Sheikh Ahmed Yassin and Abdel Aziz al-Rantisi, both of whom were co-founders of Hamas.
While Jerusalem did not immediately claim responsibility for the attack, Haniyeh’s death came just hours after Israel also killed a senior Hezbollah commander, Fuad Shukr, in a strike in the Lebanese capital Beirut.
Erdoğan also said a “stronger” stance by the Muslim world and human unity would bring an end to Israel’s “tyranny and genocide in Gaza and terrorism in our region.”
“Türkiye will continue trying every route, pushing every door and supporting Palestinians with all our means,” he added.
He also reiterated his government’s commitment to seeing a sovereign and independent Palestinian state with 1967 borders and East Jerusalem as the capital.
It comes after Erdogan warned this week he is ready to deploy his forces to Israel as he accused Benjamin Netanyahu of doing “ridiculous things to Palestine“.
He threatened to replicate previous operations in Libya and Nagorno-Karabkh and send troops to counter the Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip.
The Turkish leader, however, did not expand or clarify what steps his country would be willing to take to stop the military operation against Palestine and is known to use rhetoric of this kind to appeal to his core Islamist base of support.
In response to the comments, Israel‘s foreign ministry called on NATO to expel Turkey from the treaty.
“In light of Turkish President Erdogan’s threats to invade Israel and his dangerous rhetoric, Foreign Minister Israel Katz instructed diplomats… to urgently engage with all NATO members, calling for the condemnation of Turkey and demanding its expulsion from the regional alliance,” it said.
Earlier this month Erdoğan insisted NATO can’t continue its partnership with the Israeli government, telling a NATO news conference a summit of the military alliance that attempts at cooperation “will not be approved by Turkey”.
The United States and the European Union, which contains several members of NATO, regard Hamas as a terrorist organisation. Major nations including the US and UK have voiced support for Israel‘s right to defend itself in the wake of the October 7 attack on Israel that left some 1,200 dead, with around 250 others taken hostage.
But Israel’s retaliatory operation has obliterated entire neighbourhoods in Gaza and forced some 80 percent of the population to flee their homes, prompting international pressure on Netanyahu to end military operations.
Over 39,000 Palestinians have been killed since Israel‘s invasion began according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which doesn’t distinguish between civilians and combatants in its count.
In recent months the US and other NATO countries have been urging Netanyahu to accept an immediate ceasefire as a humanitarian crisis unfolds in the region.
This week the United States government called for calm in the wake of the killings of the Hezbollah commander and Haniyeh amid fears of a major escalation.
The White House cautioned that “all-out war” between Hezbollah and Israel or Iran and Israel was not now inevitable.
