Turkish deputy PM calls on Israel to end 'massacre of civilians'

ANKARA – Anadolu Agency

Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdağ on April 5 called on Israel to end the “disproportionate use of force against unarmed civilians” in the Gaza Strip.

In a series of tweets, Bozdağ said Israel was conducting “a civilian massacre.”

“The Israeli government should immediately put an end to the use of disproportionate force, attack and massacre of civilians and innocents,” he tweeted.

He criticized countries and international organizations for staying silent on the brutality, massacre and human rights violations carried out by Israel.

“We have seen how the countries and international organizations [...] have kept silent when massacres, human rights violations, the killing of civilians, innocent people and law are being committed by Israel,” he said.

All of these terms were just “a mask to cover their real faces… The mask has been lifted,” Bozdağ said.

He also criticized organizations for not supporting Turkey’s operation in northern Syria.

“I called on those who unjustly criticized Turkey despite not a single civilian getting hurt during the ‘Operation Olive Branch’ [in Syria’s Afrin city] to condemn, take a stance against Israel,” he added.

On March 30, tens of thousands of Palestinians converged on the Gaza Strip’s roughly 45-kilometer eastern border with Israel to reaffirm their right to return to their ancestral homes in historical Palestine.

Since then, at least 17 protesters have been killed near the border by Israeli army gunfire.

In the run-up to the protests last week, Israel deployed thousands of troops along the fraught border, vowing to use deadly force against anyone who threatened Israel’s “security infrastructure.”

The March 30 rallies kicked off a six-week protest that will culminate on May 15, which will mark the 70th anniversary of Israel’s establishment — an event Palestinians refer to as the “Nakba” or “Catastrophe.”