Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz has warned Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan after his threat of military intervention: “Erdogan is following in the footsteps of Saddam Hussein and threatening to attack Israel. He should just remember what happened there and how it ended,” Katz wrote late in the evening on the X platform.

In 2003, US troops invaded Iraq. The military operation led to the overthrow of the then Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. Three years later, Hussein was executed for massacres of Kurds and Shiites.

At an event of his ruling AKP party in Rize on the Black Sea, Erdogan said with regard to Israel: “Just as we went into Nagorno-Karabakh, just as we went into Libya, we will do the same with them.” He was referring to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, in which Erdogan supported the conflicting party Azerbaijan with drones, among other things. In the civil war-torn country of Libya, Ankara supports the internationally recognized government with military equipment and personnel.

Since the beginning of the Gaza war, relations between Israel and Turkey have deteriorated drastically. Erdogan described the Islamist Hamas as a “liberation organization” and compared Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Adolf Hitler.

In a statement released on Monday night, the Turkish Foreign Ministry accused Netanyahu of being responsible for genocide – and again drew a comparison: “The end of the genocidal Netanyahu will be like the end of the genocidal Hitler. Just as the genocidal Nazis were brought to justice, those who try to destroy the Palestinians will also be brought to justice.”

In mid-July, Erdogan declared that his country would no longer agree to cooperation between NATO and its partner Israel until a lasting peace was established in the Palestinian territories.