Erdogan tells ICC prosecutor Israel planning ‘new massacres’ in Gaza
Turkish president, PA’s Abbas press Karim Khan on expediting war crimes charge against Netanyahu in meeting on sidelines of UN General Assembly, saying Israel acting with impunity
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused Israel of genocide and urged International Criminal Court Prosecutor Karim Khan to continue pursuing war crimes charges against Israeli leaders in a meeting on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly on Monday.
Erdogan, who has been a vociferous critic of Israel since war broke out following the shock October 7 attack by Hamas, accused Israel of planning to “add new massacres to their list,” presenting Khan with a book of news photos Turkey claims shows evidence of Israeli war crimes.
Israel “committed a genocide in Gaza,” Erdogan told Khan, according to the Turkish president’s spokesperson, charging that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government had violated international law and human rights with impunity.
“It is extremely important for the genocide case filed against Israel at the International Criminal Court to be concluded and for the perpetrators of genocide to receive the punishment they deserve,” Erdogan’s spokesperson said he told Khan.
There was no official comment on the meeting from the ICC prosecutor, who in May requested arrest warrants for Netanyahu, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and leaders of the Hamas terror group on charges of crimes against humanity and war crimes for the October 7 atrocities committed by Hamas, and Israel’s military policies in its subsequent war against the terror group.
Since then, he has twice pressed the ICC’s Pre-Trial Chamber I to approve the warrants “with utmost urgency,” after the process became bogged down by a court review of amicus briefs on the case, including over the question of whether the ICC has jurisdiction over Israeli nationals.
Turkey maintains strong financial ties with Israel, yet Erdogan has repeatedly engaged in inflammatory anti-Israel rhetoric, includes comparing the country and its leaders to Nazis, while supporting Hamas and attempting to lead an Islamic alliance against the Jewish state.
War erupted in Gaza after thousands of Hamas-led terrorists burst across the border into Israel on October 7, killing some 1,200 people and seizing 251 hostages amid horrific acts of brutality including sexual assault. Israel says its military campaign in Gaza is aimed at toppling its Hamas rulers and freeing the hostages, refuting charges that it has targeted Palestinian noncombatants or attempted to use starvation as a weapon of war.
In August, Turkey made an official bid to join South Africa’s case against Israel at the International Court of Justice, which is separate from the ICC and examines the conduct of countries rather than individuals.
Erdogan’s meeting with Khan was held at Turkey’s diplomatic mission in New York, where Erdogan also held talks with Iran’s new president amid an escalation of violence between Israel and the Tehran-backed Hezbollah terror group in Lebanon.
During the Monday meeting with Masoud Pezeshkian, Erdogan similarly urged the international community to intervene to “end the violence that Israel is committing in the Palestinian and Lebanese territories,” his press office said.
Pezeshkian “emphasized that unity among Islamic countries will end the crimes being committed in Gaza,” according to Iran’s official news agency.
On Tuesday, Erdogan told German Chancellor Olaf Scholz that Western support for Israel had contributed to “unprecedented massacres in Gaza,” and lobbied for improved ties between Ankara and the European Union.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas also met with Khan on the sidelines of the high-level UN meeting, according to Palestinian news agency Wafa.
During their meeting, Abbas “demanded to expedite investigations into Israeli war crimes,” decrying Israeli “impunity” as encouragement for it “to continue committing its crimes against the Palestinian people,” the agency reported.
The UN meeting, which Netanyahu is slated to join later this week, comes as violence in the region has ratcheted up, with Israel and Hezbollah trading intense fire on Monday amid fears that the regional conflict could widen and pull in Iran.
Israel has stepped up its military activity in recent days with a series of wide-range aerial bombardments and assassinations in response to nearly a year of cross-border attacks by the terror group.
Israel carried out strikes on some 1,600 Hezbollah targets in Lebanon Monday, IDF Spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said, with most of them aimed at weapons stored in homes following warnings to civilians to evacuate such buildings immediately.
These included “cruise missiles that can reach hundreds of kilometers, heavy rockets with a 1,000-kilogram warhead, medium-range rockets that reach a range of up to 200 kilometers, short-range rockets, and armed unmanned aerial vehicles.”
Lebanese health officials said at least 492 people were killed and some 1,645 injured Monday in the Israeli strikes, marking one of the deadliest days in recent history for the war-scarred country.
Hezbollah has fired hundreds of rockets at Israeli cities in recent days, causing serious damage and several injuries.
