 "Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan Image: AP")
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday said that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government should look for funds to “compensate” for what he said was damage amounting to $100 billion “instead of looking for a place for the people of Gaza.”
During a public lecture in Malaysia, Erdogan said that more than 61,000 innocent people have been martyred in Gaza. Schools, churches, mosques and universities were bombed and almost 80% of the buildings in Gaza were destroyed.
“The financial cost of the destruction in Gaza is about $100 billion. Israel and the Netanyahu government are responsible for this heavy bill," he said
Erdogan again rejected a U.S. proposal to relocate Palestinians from Gaza and said Israel should pay for the damage it caused there and for reconstruction to begin.
“We do not consider the proposal to exile the Palestinians from the lands they have lived in for thousands of years as something to be taken seriously,” Erdogan said during a visit to Malaysia on Monday.
“No one has the power to force the Palestinian people to experience a second Nakba,” he added, referring to the mass displacement of Palestinians during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war.
Erdogan, who is on a four-day tour of Malaysia, Indonesia and Pakistan, highlighted the severe destruction in Gaza.
Reacting to Trump’s proposal to oust more than two million Palestinians living in Gaza and redevelop it prompted a global backlash that has enraged the Arab and Muslim world, Erdogan said Sunday that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday said that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government should look for funds to “compensate” for what he said was damage amounting to $100 billion “instead of looking for a place for the people of Gaza.”
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More Shorts“No one has the power to force the Palestinian people to experience a second Nakba,” he added, referring to the mass displacement of Palestinians during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war.
Erdogan, who is on a four-day tour of Malaysia, Indonesia and Pakistan, highlighted the severe destruction in Gaza.
The US president announced his proposal on Tuesday at a joint news conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who hailed it as “the first good idea that I’ve heard” on what to do with the tiny war-torn territory.
But Erdogan appeared to dismiss it as worthless.
“The proposals on Gaza put forward by the new US administration under pressure from the Zionist leadership have nothing worth discussing from our point of view,” he said.
In an interview with Palestinian television earlier on Sunday, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan ruled out the idea of forcing out the Palestinians from Gaza.
With inputs from agencies