The President of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan has accused Western nations of backing Israeli “plans to spread the war” into Lebanon, after fresh Israeli airstrikes on southern Lebanon.
“Israel is now setting its sights on Lebanon and we see that Western powers behind the scenes are patting Israel on the back and even supporting them,” Erdoğan told a parliamentary meeting of his ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) in Ankara.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin “Netanyahu’s plans to spread the war to the region will lead to a great disaster,” he said.
The 70-year-old added that it is extremely dire, pathetic that states, which talk about freedom, human rights and justice, are held captive by a crazy man like Netanyahu.
He said Türkiye stands with Lebanon and calls on regional actors to support Beirut.
The fallout from Israel’s war on Gaza is regularly felt on the Israel-Lebanon frontier, where deadly cross-border exchanges have escalated between Israeli troops and Hezbollah fighters.
Erdoğan went on to argue that pictures of starving children in the Gaza Strip are “a blight of shame for the modern world” and hit out at fellow Muslim countries, saying, “This will also be remembered as a symbol of the Muslim world’s impotence.”
Condemning Israel’s continued attacks during the Muslim holiday Eid al-Adha, Erdoğan said he remembers 38,000 Palestinians killed by Israeli “barbarity” with “God’s compassion.”
There has been no sign of let-up in the Israeli onslaught as efforts by international mediators, backed by the U.S., have failed to persuade Israel to agree to a cease-fire, while Hamas insists on an end to the war.
Israel, flouting a U.N. Security Council resolution demanding an immediate cease-fire, has faced international condemnation amid its continued brutal offensive on Gaza since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack.
Nearly 37,700 Palestinians have since been killed in Gaza, most of them women and children, and more than 86,200 others injured, according to local health authorities.
More than eight months into the Israeli war, vast tracts of Gaza lay in ruins amid a crippling blockade of food, clean water and medicine.
Israel is accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice, whose latest ruling ordered it to immediately halt its military operation in the southern city of Rafah, where more than 1 million Palestinians had sought refuge from the war before it was invaded on May 6.
Israel’s top ally the United States warned it of the risk of a major conflict against the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah in Lebanon following an escalation in cross-border fire.
“Another war between Israel and Hezbollah could easily become a regional war, with terrible consequences for the Middle East,” U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told his visiting Israeli counterpart Yoav Gallant.
Top Israeli officials including Netanyahu have suggested they were open to a diplomatic resolution of the border tensions, though Gallant said Israel should be ready for “every possible scenario.”
Türkiye has been a virulent critic of Israel, has hosted Hamas leaders and welcomes the Palestinian resistance group as a liberation movement, unlike the majority of the Western world.
Ankara has repeatedly called on the U.N. Security Council and the U.S., Israel’s biggest military provider, to exert pressure on Israel to accept a cease-fire proposal.
