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Turkey’s Foreign Ministry Compares Netanyahu to Hitler After Erdogan Threatens to Invade Israel
Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan speaks during a joint statement to the media in Baghdad, Iraq, April 22, 2024. Photo: AHMAD AL-RUBAYE/Pool via REUTERS
Turkey’s Foreign Ministry compared Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Nazi leader Adolf Hitler on Sunday, hours after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan made an explicit threat to invade Israel.
“Just as genocidal Hitler ended, so will genocidal Netanyahu,” the foreign ministry posted on X/Twitter. “Just as the genocidal Nazis were held accountable, those who tried to destroy the Palestinians will also be held accountable. Humanity will stand with the Palestinians. You will not destroy the Palestinians.”
Soykırımcı Hitler’in sonu nasıl olduysa, soykırımcı Netanyahu’nun sonu da öyle olacak.
Soykırımcı Naziler nasıl hesap verdiyse, Filistinlileri yok etmeye çalışanlar da öyle hesap verecek.
İnsanlık, Filistinlilerin yanında duracak.
Filistinlileri yok edemeyeceksiniz.
— T.C. Dışişleri Bakanlığı (@TC_Disisleri) July 28, 2024
Drawing comparisons of Israeli policy to that of the Nazis is antisemitic, according to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, which has been adopted by over 1,000 global entities including dozens of governments.
The tweet came on the same day that Erdogan, a fierce critic of Israel, threatened that Turkey might invade the Jewish state in support of the Palestinians.
“We must be very strong so that Israel can’t do these things to Palestine,” Erdogan told a meeting of his Justice and Development Party (AKP) in his hometown of Rize, referring to Israel’s war against the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas in Gaza.
“Just as we entered Karabakh, just as we entered Libya, we might do the same to them,” Erdogan continued. “There is nothing we can’t do. We must only be strong.”
The Turkish president appeared to be referring to some of his country’s past military interventions.
In 2020, Turkey sent military personnel to support the UN-recognized Government of National Accord of Libya amid its civil war.
As for the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia, Turkey has denied any direct military involvement to help the former. Last year, however, Ankara said it was using “all means,” including military training, to support its Azerbaijani allies.
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan praised Erdogan for his remarks on social media.
“Our president has become the voice of humanity’s conscience,” Fidan tweeted. “International Zionist circles, especially Israel, who want to suppress this righteous voice, are in great alarm. History ended the same way for all genociders and their supporters.”
Cumhurbaşkanımız insanlık vicdanının sesi olmuştur.
Bu haklı sesi bastırmak isteyen, başta İsrail olmak üzere uluslararası siyonist çevreler büyük bir telaş içindeler.
Tarih bütün soykırımcılar ve destekçileri için aynı şekilde sonuçlanmıştır.
— Hakan Fidan (@HakanFidan) July 28, 2024
Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz responded with a veiled threat to Erdogan.
“Erdogan follows in the footsteps of [longtime Iraqi leader] Saddam Hussein and threatens to attack Israel. Just let him remember what happened there and how it ended,” Katz wrote on X/Twitter.
ארדואן הולך בדרכו של סדאם חוסיין ומאיים לתקוף את ישראל. רק שיזכור מה קרה שם ואיך זה הסתיים.@RTErdogan pic.twitter.com/6GykLtLoh4
— ישראל כ”ץ Israel Katz (@Israel_katz) July 28, 2024
Hussein was captured, convicted of crimes against humanity, and executed by fellow Iraqis following the US invasion of Iraq in 2003.
While Netanyahu has so far been silent on the Turkish government’s latest attacks, Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid has not.
“President Erdogan is ranting and raving again. He is a danger to the Middle East,” Lapid posted on social media. “The world, and especially NATO members, must strongly condemn his outrageous threats against Israel and force him to end his support for Hamas. We won’t accept threats from a wannabe dictator.”
Turkey is a member of NATO and has the alliance’s second largest military. Its leaders’ comments were the latest in a recent wave of hostile moves targeting Israel.
In May, for example, the Turkish trade ministry said it had ceased all exports and imports to and from Israel. The announcement came after Turkey imposed trade restrictions on Israeli exports over Israel’s ongoing war against Hamas in Gaza following the terrorist group’s Oct. 7 invasion of and massacre across the southern region of the Jewish state.
Meanwhile, Turkey has also announced its intention to join South Africa’s so-far-unsuccessful case at the International Court of Justice accusing Israel of committing “state-led genocide” in its defensive military operations in Gaza.
That came after Erdogan in March threatened to “send Netanyahu to Allah to take care of him, make him miserable, and curse him.” He previously accused Israel of operating “Nazi” concentration camps and compared Netanyahu with Hitler.
Weeks earlier, Erdogan said that Netanyahu was a “butcher” who would be tried as a “war criminal” over Israel’s military operations in Gaza. He has also called Israel a “terror state.”
Turkey hosts senior Hamas officials and, together with Iran and Qatar, has provided a large portion of the Palestinian terrorist group’s budget.
Several Western and Arab states designate Hamas, an offshoot of the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood, as a terrorist group.
However, Erdogan has defended Hamas terrorists as “resistance fighters” against what he described as an Israeli occupation of Palestinian land.
Israel withdrew all its troops and civilian settlers from Gaza in 2005.
Turkish-Israeli diplomatic relations have nosedived since the Hamas atrocities of Oct. 7, when the terrorist group that rules Gaza murdered 1,200 people in southern Israel and kidnapped over 250 others as hostages, launching the ongoing war in the Palestinian enclave.
The post Turkey’s Foreign Ministry Compares Netanyahu to Hitler After Erdogan Threatens to Invade Israel first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Iranian Media Claims Obtaining ‘Sensitive’ Israeli Intelligence Materials
FILE PHOTO: The atomic symbol and the Iranian flag are seen in this illustration, July 21, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
i24 News – Iranian and Iran-affiliated media claimed on Saturday that the Islamic Republic had obtained a trove of “strategic and sensitive” Israeli intelligence materials related to Israel’s nuclear facilities and defense plans.
“Iran’s intelligence apparatus has obtained a vast quantity of strategic and sensitive information and documents belonging to the Zionist regime,” Iran’s state broadcaster said, referring to Israel in the manner accepted in those Muslim or Arab states that don’t recognize its legitimacy. The statement was also relayed by the Lebanese site Al-Mayadeen, affiliated with the Iran-backed jihadists of Hezbollah.
The reports did not include any details on the documents or how Iran had obtained them.
The intelligence reportedly included “thousands of documents related to that regime’s nuclear plans and facilities,” it added.
According to the reports, “the data haul was extracted during a covert operation and included a vast volume of materials including documents, images, and videos.”
The report comes amid high tensions over Iran’s nuclear program, over which it is in talks with the US administration of President Donald Trump.
Iranian-Israeli tensions reached an all-time high since the October 7 massacre and the subsequent Gaza war, including Iranian rocket fire on Israel and Israeli aerial raids in Iran that devastated much of the regime’s air defenses.
Israel, which regards the prospect of the antisemitic mullah regime obtaining a nuclear weapon as an existential threat, has indicated it could resort to a military strike against Iran’s installations should talks fail to curb uranium enrichment.
The post Iranian Media Claims Obtaining ‘Sensitive’ Israeli Intelligence Materials first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Israel Retrieves Body of Thai Hostage from Gaza
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz looks on, amid the ongoing conflict in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, in Jerusalem, Nov. 7, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
The Israeli military has retrieved the body of a Thai hostage who had been held in Gaza since Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack, Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Saturday.
Nattapong Pinta’s body was held by a Palestinian terrorist group called the Mujahedeen Brigades, and was recovered from the area of Rafah in southern Gaza, Katz said. His family in Thailand has been notified.
Pinta, an agricultural worker, was abducted from Kibbutz Nir Oz, a small Israeli community near the Gaza border where a quarter of the population was killed or taken hostage during the Hamas attack that triggered the devastating war in Gaza.
Israel’s military said Pinta had been abducted alive and killed by his captors, who had also killed and taken to Gaza the bodies of two more Israeli-American hostages that were retrieved earlier this week.
There was no immediate comment from the Mujahedeen Brigades, who have previously denied killing their captives, or from Hamas. The Israeli military said the Brigades were still holding the body of another foreign national. Only 20 of the 55 remaining hostages are believed to still be alive.
The Mujahedeen Brigades also held and killed Israeli hostage Shiri Bibas and her two young sons, according to Israeli authorities. Their bodies were returned during a two-month ceasefire, which collapsed in March after the two sides could not agree on terms for extending it to a second phase.
Israel has since expanded its offensive across the Gaza Strip as US, Qatari and Egyptian-led efforts to secure another ceasefire have faltered.
US-BACKED AID GROUP HALTS DISTRIBUTIONS
The United Nations has warned that most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population is at risk of famine after an 11-week Israeli blockade of the enclave, with the rate of young children suffering from acute malnutrition nearly tripling.
Aid distribution was halted on Friday after the US-and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation said overcrowding had made it unsafe to continue operations. It was unclear whether aid had resumed on Saturday.
The GHF began distributing food packages in Gaza at the end of May, overseeing a new model of aid distribution which the United Nations says is neither impartial nor neutral. It says it has provided around 9 million meals so far.
The Israeli military said on Saturday that 350 trucks of humanitarian aid belonging to U.N. and other international relief groups were transferred this week via the Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza.
The war erupted after Hamas-led terrorists took 251 hostages and killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, in the October 7, 2023 attack, Israel’s single deadliest day.
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US Mulls Giving Millions to Controversial Gaza Aid Foundation, Sources Say
Palestinians carry aid supplies which they received from the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, in the central Gaza Strip, May 29, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ramadan Abed/File Photo
The State Department is weighing giving $500 million to the new foundation providing aid to war-shattered Gaza, according to two knowledgeable sources and two former US officials, a move that would involve the US more deeply in a controversial aid effort that has been beset by violence and chaos.
The sources and former US officials, all of whom requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said that money for Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) would come from the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which is being folded into the US State Department.
The plan has met resistance from some US officials concerned with the deadly shootings of Palestinians near aid distribution sites and the competence of the GHF, the two sources said.
The GHF, which has been fiercely criticized by humanitarian organizations, including the United Nations, for an alleged lack of neutrality, began distributing aid last week amid warnings that most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population is at risk of famine after an 11-week Israeli aid blockade, which was lifted on May 19 when limited deliveries were allowed to resume.
The foundation has seen senior personnel quit and had to pause handouts twice this week after crowds overwhelmed its distribution hubs.
The State Department and GHF did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Reuters has been unable to establish who is currently funding the GHF operations, which began in Gaza last week. The GHF uses private US security and logistics companies to transport aid into Gaza for distribution at so-called secure distribution sites.
On Thursday, Reuters reported that a Chicago-based private equity firm, McNally Capital, has an “economic interest” in the for-profit US contractor overseeing the logistics and security of GHF’s aid distribution hubs in the enclave.
While US President Donald Trump’s administration and Israel say they don’t finance the GHF operation, both have been pressing the United Nations and international aid groups to work with it.
The US and Israel argue that aid distributed by a long-established U.N. aid network was diverted to Hamas. Hamas has denied that.
USAID has been all but dismantled. Some 80 percent of its programs have been canceled and its staff face termination as part of President Donald Trump’s drive to align US foreign policy with his “America First” agenda.
One source with knowledge of the matter and one former senior official said the proposal to give the $500 million to GHF has been championed by acting deputy USAID Administrator Ken Jackson, who has helped oversee the agency’s dismemberment.
The source said that Israel requested the funds to underwrite GHF’s operations for 180 days.
The Israeli government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The two sources said that some US officials have concerns with the plan because of the overcrowding that has affected the aid distribution hubs run by GHF’s contractor, and violence nearby.
Those officials also want well-established non-governmental organizations experienced in running aid operations in Gaza and elsewhere to be involved in the operation if the State Department approves the funds for GHF, a position that Israel likely will oppose, the sources said.
The post US Mulls Giving Millions to Controversial Gaza Aid Foundation, Sources Say first appeared on Algemeiner.com.