The Turkish President, Tayyip Erdogan has declared Israel a ‘terror state’ committing war crimes and violating international law in Gaza’.
Erdogan during a parliamentary address on Wednesday, insisted that Hamas gunmen are not terrorists but a ‘political party elected by Palestinians’.
He also vowed to bring Israel’s political and military leaders to trial in international courts.
The Turkish leader also went on to describe Hamas gunmen, who rampaged through southern Israel and slaughtered 1,200 Israelis on October 7, as ‘resistance fighters’ trying to protect their lands and people.
He said Hamas was a political party that had been elected by Palestinians, while failing to mention there hasn’t been an election in Gaza since 2006 when Hamas beat Fatah, a secular movement. Since then, Hamas has essentially seized control and imposed authoritarian rule over the territory.
“Israel is implementing a strategy of total destruction of a city and its people. ‘I say openly that Israel is a terrorist state”, Erdogan said.
More than 11,000 people have been killed in Gaza amid Israeli airstrikes in retaliation for Hamas’s massacre of 1,200 civilians in southern Israel.
The IDF have accused Hamas of using civilians as ‘human shields’ as they hide in tunnels underneath hospitals and homes.
