Israel's Shin Bet and IDF accused Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Sunday of allowing Hamas operatives to operate freely from Turkey, saying dozens of planned attacks directed from Turkish soil have been foiled over the past year. The agencies named five senior Hamas figures based in Turkey who they say directed the plots.
Israel's security agencies took the unusual step on Sunday of explicitly naming Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in an accusation that Hamas operates a terror infrastructure on Turkish soil 'without interference.' The accusation, released shortly after 12:02 Jerusalem, goes further than the initial security announcements earlier on Sunday, which disclosed the foiling of dozens of attacks directed by Hamas operatives in Turkey but did not name the Turkish president directly.
As The Zioneer first reported at 12:02 and 12:03 Jerusalem, the IDF and Shin Bet revealed a network of five senior Hamas figures — Ayman Sharawneh, Muhammad Mallah, Majed Ja'ba, Waleed Abu Nassar, and Salam Ya'ish — operating from Turkey and directing attacks in Judea and Samaria. The agencies' statements evolved within minutes: from a general disclosure of foiled plots (12:03) to naming the operatives and describing the network (12:02 for both versions, with increasing detail), and finally, to directly attributing responsibility to President Erdoğan himself. The coordinated release suggests a deliberate escalation of public pressure on Ankara.
Turkey has repeatedly denied harboring militant activity directed against Israel. The accusation marks a sharp escalation in Israeli-Turkish rhetoric and comes amid broader tensions between Jerusalem and Ankara over security, trade, and regional alignments, as The Zioneer has previously reported on Turkey's regional posture. No immediate response from Ankara has been reported.
What remains open is whether the Turkish government will respond officially to the direct accusation, and whether the named individuals are currently in Turkey or have been operating from there remotely.
4 developments
- StrongShin Bet names Turkey-based Hamas operatives who directed dozens of foiled attacks
- StrongPM Netanyahu calls Turkey's Erdogan an antisemitic dictator, accuses him of supporting Hamas
- DevelopingErdogan doing Tehran's bidding, will likely pressure Trump to limit Israeli strikes, analyst says
- DevelopingErdogan accuses Israel of destabilizing Africa and the Mediterranean
Source and signal
- Internal intake