The Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has threatened war against Israel and will send his army to Gaza to protect Palestinians.
This has led to a diplomatic outrage and Israel has withdrawn all diplomats from Turkey and led to a re-evaluation of their relations.
Erdogan has said that Israel has and are committing war crimes and have now framed the Palestinian militant group Hamas as “freedom fighters” and suggested the ground assault inside Gaza is a “massacre.”
He warned in his speech to hundreds of thousands of pro-Palestinian protestors that the Turkish military can “come at any night unexpectedly.”
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Hundreds of thousands of protestors chanted in response to Erdogan’s threats, “Turkish military to Gaza.”
News site Politics Today also translated Erdogan’s speech, saying, “From now on, we will continue on our path with the motto that we may suddenly knock on your door one night.”
Erdogan said that Israel “has been openly committing war crimes for 22 days,” he said that during World War Two there was a “similar mentality.”
The Turkish President said, “In the past they were massacring the Jewish people in the gas chambers and they were indeed wiping out whole regions with bombs.”
Erdogan added, “A similar mentality is being shown in Gaza today.”
Erdogan said, his government getting ready to “tell the whole world that Israel is a war criminal.”
Erdogan told hundreds of thousands of Palestinian supporters at a rally in Istanbul that Hamas are not a “terrorist organisation.”
He told pro- Palestinian protestors that “Israel is an occupier” and that Hamas are a “liberation group, mujahideen waging battle to protect its lands.”
Erdogan told the crowd on Saturday, “I reiterate that Hamas is not a terrorist organisation.
“Israel was very offended by this. (…) Israel is an occupier, Erdogan speaks clearly because Turkey does not owe you anything.”
Israeli foreign minister Eli Cohen said, “Given the grave statements coming from Turkey, I have ordered the return of diplomatic representatives there in order to conduct a re-evaluation of the relations between Israel and Turkey.”
The Egyptian President warned on Saturday that any further Israeli expansion inside Gaza risks the Middle East region becoming a “ticking time bomb.”
