Erdogan calls Israel 'terror state' ahead of Germany visit

ANKARA (AFP) - Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday called Israel a "terror state", stepping up his condemnation of the spiralling civilian toll of its war against Hamas militants in Gaza.

Erdogan's latest -- and one of the most heated -- verbal attacks against Israel came two days before he plans to make a sensitive visit to Germany for talks with Chancellor Olaf Scholz. The Turkish leader took a more nuanced line immediately after Hamas's October 7 cross-border attacks, in which about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, were killed and around 240 people taken hostage, according to Israeli officials.

But he stepped up the rhetoric as the scale of Israel's military response grew. Officials in the Hamas-run territory say some 11,500 people, also mostly civilians, have been killed in Gaza. "I say clearly that Israel is a terror state," Erdogan told members of his Islamic-rooted ruling party in parliament.

"While we curse the Israeli administration, we do not forget those who openly support these massacres and those who go out of their way to legitimise them," he said, pointing to the United States and other Western supporters of Israel. He called the war in Gaza a conflict "between the cross and the crescent", suggesting that Christian, Western supporters of Israel were fighting the Muslim world.

"They are trying to exonerate the murderers," he said, referring to the West. "We are faced with a genocide," Erdogan added, repeating a term he has used on several occasions. Turkey this month recalled its ambassador to Israel and broke off official contacts with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, suspending recent attempts by the sides to repair their rocky relations.

Israel has also said it was "re-evaluating" relations with Ankara, after calling back its diplomatic staff from Turkey and other regional countries as a security precaution. Netanyahu on Wednesday pushed back against Erdogan's comments in a video shared on X, formerly Twitter.

"President Erdogan of Turkey, who calls Israel a terrorist state but actually supports the terrorist state of Hamas," Netanyahu said. Erdogan's heated rhetoric has piled pressure in Germany on Scholz, who has been forced to defend his decision to receive the Turkish leader.

Scholz this week called Erdogan's earlier accusation of fascism against Israel "absurd", calling Israel "a democracy" and "a country that is bound to human rights and international law". Defending the planned visit, which will be Erdogan's first to Germany since 2020, Scholz's spokesman Steffen Hebestreit said Germany "always had difficult partners whom we have to deal with".