Israel not acting ‘like a state’ in Gaza: Erdoğan

Israel is not conducting itself “like a state” in the Gaza Strip, Turkey’s president said on Wednesday, as Israel pounded the territory after a Hamas onslaught, Agence France-Presse reported.

“Israel should not forget that if it acts more like a [terrorist] organization than a state, it’ll finish by being treated as such,” President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said, attacking the “shameful methods” of the Israeli army in the densely populated Gaza Strip.

“Bombing civilian sites, killing civilians, blocking humanitarian aid and trying to present these as achievements are the acts of a [terrorist] organization and not a state,” he said.

Erdoğan usually uses the word “organization” when he refers to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which is listed as a terrorist group by Turkey and much of the international community.

“We think that a war should have an ethic and that both parties should respect it. Unfortunately, this principle is gravely violated in Israel and in Gaza,” he said, denouncing the “murders of civilians on Israeli territory” and “the blind massacre of innocents in a Gaza subjected to constant bombardment.”