Due to Israel’s Gaza offensive, Turkey has halted all trade with the country, citing the “worsening humanitarian tragedy” in the region.
The limits would remain in place until Israel permits a “uninterrupted and sufficient flow” of supplies into Gaza, according to the Turkish Trade Ministry.
Last year, trade between the two nations was valued at about $7 billion (£5.6 billion).
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was charged by Israel’s foreign minister with behaving like a “dictator”.
Mr. Erdogan was “disregarding the interests of the Turkish people and businessmen and ignoring international trade agreements,” according to Israel Katz on X.
He went on to say that he had given the foreign ministry instructions to look for additional ways to trade with Turkey, emphasizing both domestic production and imports from other nations.
Israel’s “uncompromising attitude” toward a ceasefire and the humanitarian situation in the southern Gaza city of Rafah were criticized by Turkish Trade Minister Omer Bolat, who stated, “Turkey has suspended all export and import with Israel until a permanent ceasefire is established and the aid into the Gaza is allowed without any interruption.”
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The first nation with a majority of Muslims to recognize Israel was Turkey in 1949. However, things have gotten worse in recent years.
After ten pro-Palestinian Turkish activists were killed in skirmishes with Israeli commandos who boarded a Turkish-owned ship in an attempt to breach Israel’s naval blockade of the Gaza Strip, Turkey severed diplomatic ties with Israel in 2010.
In 2016, relations were repaired, but two years later, over Israel’s murder of Palestinians during protests along the Gaza-Israel border, both nations removed their top diplomats from each other.
Since the fatal Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2018, Mr. Erdogan’s criticism of Israel has been more vehement.
He has been critical of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on several occasions, calling him “the butcher of Gaza” and drawing comparisons between him and Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, and Joseph Stalin.
According to Mr. Netanyahu, the leader of Turkey is the last person who can teach morals to Israel. He claimed in March that President Erdogan “masses Kurds in his own country, denies the Armenian genocide, and supports the mass murderers and rapists of Hamas.”
