Erdogan Attacks Israel And The West: “War Crimes In Palestine”

A rift appeared between Israel and Elon Musk, who announced that he had opened the Starlink satellite system to guarantee Internet connectivity in the Gaza Strip to “internationally recognized humanitarian organizations”

The bloody attack launched by the Palestinian Hamas movement on October 7 against Israel is causing new crises and dangerous cracks in international relations. At the moment, no one can predict its true scale and the dangerous consequences that the escalation of tensions between states could have for the future of the entire world.

The latest and most brutal attack was launched by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan not only against the state of Israel, but also against the West as a whole, accused of “mobilizing its politicians and its media to legitimize the massacre of innocent people in the Gaza Strip.”

Thus, in the blink of an eye, Erdogan turned from an effective mediator between Israel and Palestine into a defender of Hamas: “They are not terrorists, but liberators,” the Turkish leader said during the largest rally of one and a half million people in Istanbul in support of Palestine and announced that he had “cancelled his trip to Israel.”

In front of a huge crowd waving Turkish and Palestinian flags, Erdogan threatened: “We will tell the whole world that Israel is a war criminal. We are preparing for this. We will declare Israel a war criminal,” the Turkish leader said.

Erdogan’s statements both at the mass rally and later, before members of the Turkish Grand National Assembly (GNA), have put European leaders in an awkward position. According to Erdogan, Hamas militants are fighting for their land, while the Tel Aviv military commits new atrocities every day. “About half of those killed as a result of Israeli attacks on Gaza are children, even this figure shows that the goal is atrocity, the perpetration of deliberate crimes against humanity,” the Turkish leader emphasized during a speech to the parliamentary group of his AKP party. “We have no problem with the state of Israel, but we have never approved of the atrocities committed by Israel and its way of acting, which resembles an organization rather than a state,” Erdogan added.

The reaction by Israel was not long in coming. Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen ordered all Israeli diplomatic representatives at the Ankara embassy and consulates to “immediately leave Turkey due to Erdogan’s harsh statements” following Israel’s ground operation in the Gaza Strip.

As Haaretz newspaper reported, “the unprecedented step will be followed by a fundamental reassessment of relations between Israel and Turkey.”

Finally, there is a rift between Israel and Elon Musk, who announced the availability of Starlink satellite communications services to support communications with “internationally recognized humanitarian organizations” in the Gaza Strip. However, Israel opposed Musk’s initiative. “We will use every means at our disposal,” said Israeli Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi, “to stop him.” According to Karhi, Musk should condition these ties on “the release of our hostages: children, men, women, the elderly, everyone. Until then, our Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications will sever all ties with Starlink.”

However, on Sunday, October 29, Palestinian media reported, without specifying whether it was Starlink services or not, that “telephone lines and the Internet in the Gaza Strip are starting to function again.”