Turkish President Erdoğan is threatening Israel with military intervention to support the Palestinians in the war. However, an actual attack is unlikely.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is suggesting the deployment of Turkish forces in Israel to support the Palestinians. This is reported by several Israeli media outlets. “We must be very strong so that Israel cannot do these things to Palestine,” Erdoğan said at a political meeting of his AKP party in Rize in northern Turkey. He is referring to the Israeli war against Hamas in Gaza.
“Just as we invaded (Nagorno-)Karabakh, just as we invaded Libya, we could do the same with them. There is nothing we cannot do. We just have to be strong,” the Turkish president continued. Military intervention by Turkey in the war in the Gaza Strip is considered very unlikely. Because Turkey is part of NATO.
Israel is not a member of the defense alliance, but is a partner with whom extensive cooperation exists. At the beginning of July, Turkey announced that it would not agree to future cooperation between NATO and Israel.
NATO member Turkey will not accept such initiatives “until a comprehensive and sustainable peace is established in the Palestinian territories,” Erdoğan wrote on Platform X following the NATO summit in Washington.
Since the beginning of the Gaza war, relations between Israel and Turkey have deteriorated drastically. Erdoğan described the Islamist Hamas as a “liberation organization” and compared Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Adolf Hitler.
Erdoğan’s current threat comes after a rocket attack on the Golan Heights and a feared escalation of the Middle East conflict. According to Israeli reports, an Iranian-made rocket hit a football field in Majdal Shams on the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights on Saturday.
Twelve people aged between 10 and 20 were killed. Israel blamed Hezbollah in Lebanon, which vehemently denied any involvement (read more here). The USA also sees the Shiite militia as responsible.
