Erdogan Says Israel Is Dragging Whole Region Into All-Out War

The United Nations is warning of ‘catastrophe’ in Lebanon while Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is accusing Israel of dragging the whole Middle East region into war. He has frequently laid sole blame on Israel for everything that’s happened since Oct.7.

United Nations special coordinator for Lebanon, Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, said on X, “With the region on the brink of an imminent catastrophe, it cannot be overstated enough: there is NO military solution that will make either side safer.”

Hezbollah members parade at an annual pro-Palestinian rally in Beirut, via Reuters.

President Erdogan appeared to agree, but took his assessment a big step further, laying blame fully on Israel. He blasted Israel as a “terrorist organization” – which isn’t the first time he’s denounced the country in fiery remarks.

“I have been saying all along that Israel targets not only the Gaza Strip. The recent attacks on Lebanon have confirmed our suspicion that the Israeli leadership’s plan is to spread the war to the entire region,” Erdogan said.

“Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his gang have been staging all kinds of provocations to implement their radical Zionist ideology,” he added. The pressure on Israel must be intensified further to prevent the region from being dragged into an even greater disaster.”

He made the remarks Saturday just before traveling to the United States to attend a UN General Assembly meeting.

“Once again, unfortunately, we see that Israel is carrying out attacks not as a state but as a terrorist organization. This is state terrorism. The latest digital attacks [the explosions of communication devices in Lebanon] are a very clear confirmation of this,” he described in reference to last Tuesday and Wednesday’s pager explosion attacks which left scores dead in Lebanon and hundreds wounded and injured.

“With this attack Israel clearly demonstrated that it does not care about civilians and will try to achieve its mean aims goals at any cost,” Erdogan said. Israel and its supporters have asserted that it was a highly ‘precision’ operation which took out Hezbollah members. The Lebanese government has said that children and other bystanders were killed and wounded also in the attack.

On Saturday Israel very clearly intensified its airstrikes on Hezbollah positions in southern Lebanon. Hezbollah retaliated with dozens of rockets in the early Sunday morning hours targeting Israel’s Ramat David Airbase, east of Haifa.

The White House has basically given up trying to steer events in the Middle East and is betting the farm on the hope that Israel’s government, which turned its Gaza war into a strategic disaster, will somehow prove to be a strategic genius in Lebanon. https://t.co/jvdDbPbM6G

— Gregg Carlstrom (@glcarlstrom) September 22, 2024

Israel has been forced to close all schools and ban public gathers across broad swathes of the north. Its military said in total over 100 projectiles were launched from Lebanon Sunday morning.

The stated objective of Israel’s military leadership at this point is to make the north safe enough for people to permanently return to their homes, but that’s still looking far away at this point.