ISTANBUL: Israel’s Foreign Minister Israel Katz’s “baseless accusations” against Türkiye’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan are a “futile attempt” to divert the global community’s attention away from Israel’s crimes in the besieged Gaza Strip, the Turkish Foreign Ministry said on Monday.
“Israeli Foreign Minister Katz’s disrespectful tone and baseless accusations against President Erdogan are a futile attempt to change the agenda about Israel’s crimes in Palestine,” the ministry said in a statement.
Ankara will continue to advocate for Palestinian rights and justice, it said.
It said the Israeli government led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been responsible for the deaths of 40,000 Palestinians since Oct.7, and “barbarically massacred” dozens of innocent displaced people in an attack on a tent camp Sunday night.
“All those who are complicit in these crimes will be brought to justice before international courts,” it said, referring to Israel’s airstrike on tents housing displaced people in Rafah city, southern Gaza Strip, which the global community described as “relentless, merciless, and deliberate genocidal actions.”
At least 45 people, mostly women and children, were killed and nearly 250 others injured in an Israeli strike on a camp for displaced people in Rafah.
Israel carried out the atrocious attack despite an International Court of Justice (ICJ) order for Tel Aviv to halt its offensive in Rafah, where over a million Palestinians sought refuge from the war before it was invaded on May 6.
Israel has killed more than 36,000 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip since a cross-border attack by Hamas on Oct. 7 last year, which killed around 1,200 people.
The military campaign has turned much of the enclave of 2.3 million people into ruins, leaving most civilians homeless and at risk of famine.
