Turkish President: Israel ‘recklessly plans to add new massacres to its list’

WASHINGTON

Israel is committing “genocide” in the Gaza Strip and plans to “add new massacres to its list,” Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Monday.

At a meeting with International Criminal Court (ICC) Prosecutor Karim Khan in New York, Erdogan said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government had “no qualms about violating international law and human rights.”

The closed meeting at the Turkish House took place on the sidelines of the 79th session of the UN General Assembly.

According to Turkey’s Directorate of Communications, Erdogan told Khan that Israel and the Netanyahu government were “recklessly plotting to add new massacres to their list, believing they were powerless to stop them.”

President Erdogan also said: “Israel must be held accountable for the crimes it has committed. It is extremely important that the genocide case pending against Israel before the International Criminal Court be concluded and that the perpetrators receive the punishment they deserve in order to maintain trust in international law.”

Turkey will “continue to make every effort to uncover the crime of genocide with concrete evidence,” the Communications Directorate said.

Turkey and Erdogan are vehemently calling for the Netanyahu government to be held accountable in international courts for its nearly year-long, relentless offensive in the Gaza Strip, in which more than 130,000 Palestinians have been killed or injured.

In May, Khan asked the court to issue arrest warrants against Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on suspicion of committing crimes against humanity in the Gaza Strip.

Since then, Khan has asked the court twice, most recently in August, to expedite the arrest warrants.

Since October 7 last year, more than 41,400 people, mostly women and children, have been killed and more than 95,500 injured in Israeli attacks on Gaza over the course of nearly a year, according to local health authorities.

The Israeli attack has displaced almost the entire population of the area. The ongoing blockade is leading to severe shortages of food, clean water and medicine.

Israel is also accused of genocide by the UN International Court of Justice because of its actions in the Gaza Strip. The International Court of Justice is an independent body and the seat of the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

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