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Israeli-Turkish Relations Nosedive Again Following Erdogan’s Threat to ‘Send Netanyahu to Allah’
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan addressing a pro-Hamas rally in Istanbul. Photo: Reuters/Dilara Senkaya
Turkey’s foreign ministry issued a furious condemnation of Israel on Friday as it responded to a dressing-down of Ankara’s ambassador in Tel Aviv by Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz.
Katz had summoned the Turkish envoy, Şakir Özkan Torunlar, to lodge a protest against an election rally speech by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Thursday in which he threatened to “send [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu to Allah to take care of him, make him miserable and curse him.”
Erdogan’s latest salvo against Netanyahu was one more example of his increasingly inflammatory denunciations of Israel since the Hamas massacre of Oct. 7. Erdogan has yet to condemn the slaughter, during which more than 1,200 people were murdered and over 200 taken hostage amid atrocities that included mass rape, while constantly aiming barbs at Israel — among them the statement that Netanyahu is “worse than Hitler.” He has also lauded Hamas terrorists as “freedom fighters,” declaring earlier this month that “Turkey is a country that speaks openly with Hamas leaders and firmly backs them.”
In a post on X/Twitter following his meeting with Torunlar, Katz pulled no punches. Referring to “Erdogan’s serious attack on Prime Minister Netanyahu and his threats to send PM Netanyahu to Allah,” Katz declared: “You who support the burning of babies, murderers, rapists and the mutilation of corpses by Hamas criminals, [are] the last one who can speak about God. There is no God who will listen to those who support the atrocities and crimes against humanity committed by your barbaric Hamas friends.”
Katz then exhorted: “Be quiet and shame on you!”
In its reply to Katz, the Turkish foreign ministry rejected the criticism entirely, suggesting in the opening sentence of its statement that Israel has been built upon “occupied” Palestinian land since its creation.
“Since the first day they occupied Palestinian lands, the Israeli authorities have made a great effort to keep the serious crimes they committed against the Palestinians secret, and have tried to create an armor of immunity for themselves,” the statement claimed. “They have targeted our President, who screams the truth.”
The statement went to accuse Israel of committing “genocide” in its current war against Hamas terrorists in Gaza, claiming that the “entire world public opinion is eagerly awaiting the day when Israeli officials who committed crimes will be brought to justice.”
Erdogan’s attack on Netanyahu came in the same week that he threatened to intensify Turkish military operations against Kurdish fighters across the border in Iraq, pledging to create a “security corridor” that would “give new nightmares to those who think that they will bring Turkey to its knees with a ‘Terroristan’ along its southern borders.”
One Kurdish opposition politician highlighted Erdogan’s equation of the Kurdish people — who number 25 million and have been consistently denied the right of national self-determination — with “terrorism” with alarm.
“Erdogan’s policy during the election campaign is as follows: he conducts his campaign using the word and concept ‘terroristan’ for Kurds and the region where the Kurdish people live,” Tulay Hatimogullari, co-chair of the Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party, observed in a speech earlier this week to mark the Kurdish New Year.
“The geography where the Kurdish people live, the geography where peoples live, is not ‘terroristan,’ it is Kurdistan,” she added.
The post Israeli-Turkish Relations Nosedive Again Following Erdogan’s Threat to ‘Send Netanyahu to Allah’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Smotrich Says Defense Ministry to Spur Voluntary Emigration from Gaza
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich attends an inauguration event for Israel’s new light rail line for the Tel Aviv metropolitan area, in Petah Tikva, Israel, Aug. 17, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen
i24 News – Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said on Sunday that the government would establish an administration to encourage the voluntary migration of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip.
“We are establishing a migration administration, we are preparing for this under the leadership of the Prime Minister [Benjamin Netanyahu] and Defense Minister [Israel Katz],” he said at a Land of Israel Caucus at the Knesset, Israel’s parliament. “The budget will not be an obstacle.”
Referring to the plan championed by US President Donald Trump, Smotrich noted the “profound and deep hatred towards Israel” in Gaza, adding that “sources in the American government” agreed “that it’s impossible for two million people with hatred towards Israel to remain at a stone’s throw from the border.”
The administration would be under the Defense Ministry, with the goal of facilitating Trump’s plan to build a “Riviera of the Middle East” and the relocation of hundreds of thousands of Gazans for rebuilding efforts.
“If we remove 5,000 a day, it will take a year,” Smotrich said. “The logistics are complex because you need to know who is going to which country. It’s a potential for historical change.”
The post Smotrich Says Defense Ministry to Spur Voluntary Emigration from Gaza first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Defense Ministry: 16,000 Wounded in War, About Half Under 30
A general view shows the plenum at the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, in Jerusalem. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
i24 News – The Knesset’s (Israeli parliament’s) Special Committee for Foreign Workers held a discussion on Sunday to examine the needs of wounded and disabled IDF soldiers and the response foreign caregivers could provide.
During the discussion, data from the Defense Minister revealed that the number of registered IDF wounded and disabled veterans rose from 62,000 to 78,000 since the war began on October 7, 2023. “Most of them are reservists and 51 percent of the wounded are up to 30 years old,” the ministry’s report said. The number will increase, the ministry assesses, as post-trauma cases emerge.
The committee chairwoman, Knesset member Etty Atiya (Likud), emphasized the need to reduce unnecessary bureaucracy for the wounded and to remove obstacles. “There is no dispute that the IDF disabled have sacrificed their bodies and souls for the people of Israel, for the state of Israel,” she said. Addressing the veterans, she continued: “And we, as public representatives and public servants alike, must do everything, but everything, to improve your lives in any way possible, to alleviate your pain and the distress of your family members who are no less affected than you.”
Currently, extensions are being given to the IDF veterans on a three-month basis, which Atiya said creates uncertainty and fear among the patients.
“The committee calls on the Interior Minister [Moshe Arbel] to approve as soon as possible the temporary order on our table, so that it will reach the approval of the Knesset,” she said, adding that she “intends to personally approach the Director General of the Population Authority [Shlomo Mor-Yosef] on the matter in order to promote a quick and stable solution.”
The post Defense Ministry: 16,000 Wounded in War, About Half Under 30 first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Over 1,300 Killed in Syria as New Regime Accused of Massacring Civilians
Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad speaks during an interview with Sky News Arabia in Damascus, Syria in this handout picture released by the Syrian Presidency on August 8, 2023. Syrian Presidency/Handout via REUTERS
i24 News – Over 1,300 people were killed in two days of fighting in Syria between security forces under the new Syrian Islamist leaders and fighters from ousted president Bashar al-Assad’s Alawite sect on the other hand, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights on Sunday.
Since Thursday, 1,311 people had been killed, according to the Observatory, including 830 civilians, mainly Alawites, 231 Syrian government security personnel, and 250 Assad loyalists.
The intense fighting broke out late last week as the Alawite militias launched an offensive against the new government’s fighters in the coastal region of the country, prompting a massive deployment ordered by new leader Ahmed al-Sharaa.
“We must preserve national unity and civil peace as much as possible and… we will be able to live together in this country,” al-Sharaa said, as quoted in the BBC.
The death toll represents the most severe escalations since Assad was ousted late last year, and is one of the most costly in terms of human lives since the civil war began in 2011.
The counter-offensive launched by al-Sharaa’s forces was marked by reported revenge killings and atrocities in the Latakia region, a stronghold of the Alawite minority in the country.
The post Over 1,300 Killed in Syria as New Regime Accused of Massacring Civilians first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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