Illustrative image: Reuters/B. Ratner
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have traded barbs over the May 14 protests at the Gaza border amid the US embassy inauguration in Jerusalem.
On May 15, giving an interview to the US TV channel CBS News, Netanyahu defended Israeli actions against Palestinians protestors and accused Hamas of being responsible for these deaths. He stressed that “if Hamas had not pushed them there, then nothing would happen.”
Later, Erdogan wrote at his twitter that “Hamas is not a terrorist organization and Palestinians are not terrorists” and “the blood of Palestinians” is on Netanyahu’s hands.
Reminder to Netanyahu:
Hamas is not a terrorist organization and Palestinians are not terrorists.
It is a resistance movement that defends the Palestinian homeland against an occupying power.
The world stands in solidarity with the people of Palestine against their oppressors.
— Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (@RT_Erdogan) May 15, 2018
Netanyahu is the PM of an apartheid state that has occupied a defenseless people's lands for 60+ yrs in violation of UN resolutions.
He has the blood of Palestinians on his hands and can't cover up crimes by attacking Turkey.
Want a lesson in humanity? Read the 10 commandments.
— Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (@RT_Erdogan) May 15, 2018
Amid the escalating diplomatic dispute over the Gaza border casualties Turkey and Israel temporarily expelled each other’s envoys.
On May 16, Ankara asked Israel’s consul general in Istanbul Yossi Levi Safri to leave the country ‘for a while”, Turkish news agency Anadolu reported.
On May 15, the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs ordered Israeli Ambassador to Turkey Eitan Naeh to leave the country for consultations for indefinite period. Later, Israel asked the Turkish consul in Jerusalem Husnu Gurcan Turkoglu to return “considering latest development on bilateral relation between Jerusalem and Ankara.”
Turkey’s ambassadors to the US and Israel were already recalled for consultations on May 15.
On May 15, Member of the Palestinian Parliament for Jericho Saeb Muhammad Salih Erekat stated that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas had recalled the Head of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) to the US in Washington Hussam Zomlot, according to the state-run Palestinian WAFA news agency. The measure was taken as “the US moved its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.”
This move undermines the US mediator role in the Middle East peace process as it threatens to grow tensions in the region.
Belgium summoned the Israeli Ambassador Simona Frankel to a meeting in the foreign ministry. Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel and Minister of Foreign Affairs Didier Reynders criticized the violence in the Gaza Strip and inquired an international investigation by the UN to solve the problem, according to Xinhua.
“I condemn this violence, which is totally unacceptable. I will have the opportunity tonight to meet the Secretary-General of the United Nations. I will plead for an international investigation. There can be no impunity. There are rules in international law”, Michel said.
Republic of South Africa (RSA) condemned as well “violent aggression carried out by Israeli armed” at the Gaza border and recalled its ambassador in Israel, Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported.
Due to the same reason, Ireland summoned the Israeli ambassador Zeev Boker and “called for an independent UN investigation”.
On May 16, Deputy Prime Minister of Sweden Margot Wallstrom said that he US is responsible for violence of Israeli forces at the Gaza border, Anadolu news agency reported.
“The U.S. has a big responsibility in the incidents where at least 50-60 Palestinians were killed and many others injured,” Wallstrom pointed out.
