Erdogan warns Israel of ‘heavy price’ if it targets Hamas on Turkish soil

News Network

December 7, 2023

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has warned Israel of a “heavy price” if the Tel Aviv regime carries out its alleged plot to target members of the Palestinian Hamas resistance group on Turkish soil.

The Turkish leader made the warning as he was speaking with journalists on his return flight from a two-day Qatar trip on Tuesday, just a day after the Shin Bet chief revealed that Tel Aviv intends to assassinate Hamas members living outside Palestine.

“If they dare to take such a step against Turkey, they will pay a price which they cannot recover from,” Erdogan said, stressing, “Those who attempt such a thing should not forget that the consequences can be extremely serious. No one is unaware of Turkey’s progress in both intelligence and security fields worldwide. Additionally, we are not a newly established state.”

His warning came just two days after Israel's Kan news network aired a recording in which Ronen Bar, the head of Israel's internal spy agency – known as Shin Bet - said Tel Aviv was determined to kill Hamas leaders “in every location” around the world.

“In Gaza, in the West Bank, in Lebanon, in Turkey, in Qatar, everyone,” Bar added in the recordings. “It will take a few years, but we will be there in order to do it,” he added.

Shin Bet's head went on to say, “The cabinet set a goal for us, to take out Hamas. And we are determined to do it, this is our Munich.”

Bar was referring to the years-long Israeli effort to assassinate Palestinians purportedly responsible for the 1972 Munich Olympics attack, in which 11 Israeli athletes were killed.

Israel launched the war on Gaza on October 7 after the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas waged the surprise Operation Al-Aqsa Storm against the occupying entity in response to the Israeli regime's decades-long suppression and devastation against Palestinians.

More than 16,000 Palestinians have been killed in the US-backed war, most of them women and children.

Erdogan has been vocal in denouncing Israel’s relentless strikes on Gaza and has already said that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will eventually be “tried as a war criminal.”

Ankara and Tel Aviv had restored their diplomatic ties only recently, but the current war has deteriorated their bilateral relations significantly.

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Hezbollah’s media relations chief killed in Israeli strike on Beirut

News Network

November 17,2024

An Israeli airstrike on the office of Syria’s Baath party in Lebanon’s capital Beirut has killed the Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah's Media Relations Officer, Mohammad Afif, reports say.

Lebanon's National News Agency (NNA) reported that the Israeli raid struck the Ba'ath party’s building in central Beirut district of Ras Al-Naba'a on Sunday, adding that the strike was an attempt to assassinate the leader of the resistance media front.

According to Baath Secretary-General Ali Hijazi, Afif was having a meeting in the Baath Party headquarters when Israel carried out the attack.

"Afif did not fight with weapons and did not lead a military unit in Hezbollah. Rather, he led a media unit," he said.

Reuters, Sky News, Al Jazeera and a number of Henrew-language media reported that Afif was killed in the Israeli strike.

However, Hezbollah has not yet confirmed Afif’s death or whether he was present at the site or not.

Earlier, the Lebanese Health Ministry said at least one person was killed and three others injured after an Israeli strike targeted a central district in Beirut.

Lebanon's al-Mayadeen television network reported that five people were killed in the attack.

The latest development came after Afif said Hezbollah was behind the Caesarea operation and targeting Netanyahu’s home during a speech at the Ghobeiry area in the southern suburbs of Beirut on October 22.

This was the second assassination attempt on Afif in the last two months, after he survived an attack on the Hezbollah media relations office several weeks ago.

Israel launched a ground assault and massive air campaign against Lebanon in late September after a year of exchanging fire across the Lebanese border in parallel with the Gaza war.

At least 3,287 people have been killed in Israeli strikes in Lebanon over the past year, with the vast majority in the past seven weeks. Another 14,222 have been wounded, mostly women and children.

In response to the ongoing aggression, the Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah has been staging hundreds of retaliatory strikes against the occupied Palestinian territories and the Israeli forces trying to advance on southern Lebanese areas.

The movement has vowed to sustain its strikes until the regime ends the escalation.

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