Turkey Criticizes Israel over Response to Palestinian Protests
Voice of America
ISTANBUL - Mosques across Turkey broadcast prayers Monday in support of Palestinians injured in violent confrontations with Israeli police in Jerusalem. The unrest, which coincides with the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, comes amid the possible eviction of Palestinians from east Jerusalem homes on land claimed by Jewish settlers.
Also Monday, hundreds of people, many waving Palestinian flags, massed in front of Israel’s consulate in Istanbul in protest of Israeli police actions around the Al-Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem’s Old City. The site is known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary, considered the holiest site in Judaism and the third holiest in Islam. Witnesses reported Israeli security forces fired tear gas, rubber bullets, and stun grenades at Palestinian demonstrators, some of whom threw rocks at police. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s communication chief, Fahrettin Altun, Monday tweeted, “It’s time to stop Israel’s heinous and cruel attacks.”Palestinians gather at the site of an Israeli strike on a camp for internally displaced people in Rafah on May 27, 2024. Fire rages following an Israeli strike on an area designated for displaced Palestinians, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, in this still picture taken from a video, May 26, 2024. Palestinians gather at the site of an Israeli strike on a camp for internally displaced people in Rafah on May 27, 2024. A member of the bomb squad of the Israeli police collects debris after a rocket fired by Palestinian militants struck in the Israeli city of Herzliya on May 26, 2024.