Erdoğan says Israel will be stopped ‘sooner or later’

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Tuesday condemned Israel’s ground operation in Lebanon and urged the United Nations and other international organizations to stop Israel without “wasting any more time,” Agence France-Presse reported.

“Whatever it does, Israel will be stopped sooner or later,” Erdoğan told the Turkish parliament at the opening of the legislative year.

“All state and international organizations, especially the UN, must stop Israel without wasting any more time,” he added.

The Israeli army said it had launched a ground offensive in Lebanon and that its forces engaged in clashes Tuesday, escalating the conflict after a week of intense airstrikes that killed hundreds.

Erdoğan said “the terror and genocide” Israel has carried out in Gaza has reached Lebanon and warned that if not stopped, the Israeli leadership would set its sights on Turkey.

“I openly say that the Israeli leadership, acting with the delirium of the promised land and with a purely religious fanaticism, will set its sights on our homeland after Palestine and Lebanon,” Erdoğan said, again comparing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Nazi Germany’s Adolf Hitler.

Turkish President #Erdogan, a defender of the Hamas terror organization, claimed today that Israel has set its sights on invading Turkey after Lebanon and vowed to stop Israel no matter what.

Turkey became Iran v2.0 under this fanatic dictator pic.twitter.com/c67VGWGGHb

— Abdullah Bozkurt (@abdbozkurt) October 1, 2024

“Just as Hitler, who saw himself in a giant mirror, was stopped, Netanyahu will be stopped in the same way,” he said.

Erdoğan has been a fervent critic of Israel’s conduct of the war, which was sparked by a bloody Hamas assault on October 7, repeatedly trading barbs with Netanyahu.

Dubbing him the “butcher of Gaza,” Erdoğan has accused Netanyahu of seeking to “spread the war” across the wider Middle East.

He accused “the members of Netanyahu’s government” of “wanting to provoke a regional war to stay in power,” calling for them to be tried in international courts.