Turkey’s 2024 Palestine and Israel Policies

Abstract

Turkey's Palestine and Israel policy in 2024 mainly focused on stopping Israel's attacks on Gaza, ensuring the delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza and ensuring that Israel is prosecuted for the war and genocide crimes it has committed. In this context, it has always kept Gaza on the agenda with all the means at its disposal, tried to show that what is happening in the region is not as Israel tells the world, and has been the trigger of global conscience mobilised against Israel all over the world.

Despite Israel's occupation and violations in the Palestinian territories, its position, which until now seemed to be exempt from international law, began to be shaken by the developments in international courts during the year, and the belief that Israel could be prosecuted despite the support of the US and other Western countries increased. The decisions of the ICJ and the ICC against Israel were the most concrete indicators of this. In addition, Turkey's trade bans against Israel, although causing economic losses for Turkey, have been a source of inspiration for other countries.

In the end, thanks to Turkey's efforts, Israel's efforts to make Gaza Palestinian did not yield any results and it was understood that Gazans would not leave their land no matter what. This situation isolated and cornered Israel, perhaps more than ever before. Thus, the Al-Aqsa Flood attack on 7 October, while Israel's plans to normalise relations with the countries in the region and leave the Palestinians on their own failed, Turkey-Israel relations were subjected to a rapid deterioration in this context and it was better understood that there were disagreements between the two countries other than Palestine.