Erdoğan says West Bank settler attacks aim to displace Palestinians

Settler attacks in the West Bank aim to push Palestinians off land they have lived on for centuries, the official Palestinian news agency WAFA reported, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said on Friday.

Erdoğan made the remarks at the opening ceremony of the 10th TRT World Forum in Istanbul, saying the attacks are growing bolder while the international community watches.

He said more than 3,000 attacks and violations against Palestinians were documented in the West Bank in October alone.

Erdoğan also recalled that about two weeks earlier, an international delegation of lawmakers, academics and politicians was barred from entering the West Bank.

He raised the case of American photojournalist Heidi Levine, who he said was badly assaulted by settlers on Oct. 16 while covering the olive harvest in Abu Falah, east of Ramallah, and left with severe injuries.

Erdoğan said over the past year alone, 1,500 Palestinians had been killed and nearly 5,500 wounded in such attacks.

He said global institutions tasked with building peace, security and stability were merely watching events in Gaza from the sidelines, and that Gaza's residents were struggling to survive amid rubble, shortages of fuel and hospital equipment, and obstruction of humanitarian aid.

Erdoğan described the killing of more than 270 journalists during the war in Gaza as highly conspicuous and shameful.

He asserted that most of these journalists were deliberately and directly targeted by Israeli forces.

He also criticized organizations that claim independence but, in his view, continue to give Israel preferential treatment in their press freedom reports.

The West Bank has been under Israeli military occupation since 1967, and the Gaza war has drawn repeated international criticism of the conduct of Israeli forces, as well as Israeli denials of targeting civilians or journalists.