ANKARA (Reuters) – Turkey strongly condemns “provocations” by Israeli forces during raids on a refugee camp in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin and the desecration of a mosque there, Turkey’s foreign ministry said, calling for those responsible to be punished.
Israeli troops killed a youth at a hospital and read out Jewish prayers at a mosque in Jenin during the raids that Palestinian authorities said killed 12 and that Israel said helped capture dozens of militants.
“We strongly condemn the provocations of Israeli soldiers who stormed the Jenin Refugee Camp, and disrespected sanctity of a place of worship by entering the mosque,” Spokesman Oncu Keceli said on social messaging platform X late on Thursday.
“In East Jerusalem and the West Bank, where tensions are running extremely high due to settler terror and heavy pressure and attacks by Israeli security forces against Palestinians, we expect attacks on Muslim holy places to be ended immediately and those who perpetrate these provocations to be punished in the most severe way,” he added.
The Palestinian government criticised the operation inside Jenin as a “dangerous escalation” and in a statement said the desecration of the mosque by some Israeli troops fanned religious tension. Israel’s army said it would discipline the soldiers.
Turkey, which supports a two-state solution to the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict, has harshly criticised Israel for its attacks on Gaza and in the West Bank, saying the Israeli settlers in the region were “terrorists”. It has called for an immediate ceasefire and slammed Western support for Israel.
(Reporting by Tuvan Gumrukcu; Editing by Lincoln Feast)
