Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz has called on NATO to exclude Turkey as a member. Katz based this on a speech by Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who threatened military intervention in Israel at an event organised by his ruling AKP party on Sunday evening. Just as Turkey intervened in Nagorno-Karabakh and Libya, it would do the same with Israel, Erdoğan said, without explaining specific plans.

Erdoğan was referring to the war against Armenia’s Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh), where Turkey supported the aggressor Azerbaijan with drones, among other things. In the civil war in Libya, Ankara is supporting the internationally recognised government with military equipment and personnel. Erdoğan left it open in his speech what form support for the Palestinians might take, but said: ‘We must be very strong so that Israel cannot do these ridiculous things in Palestine.’

Erdoğan's statements were sharply criticised in Israel. “In light of Turkish President Erdoğan's threats to invade Israel and his dangerous rhetoric, Foreign Minister Israel Katz instructed his diplomats to urgently contact all NATO members to condemn Turkey and demand its expulsion from the alliance,” the Israeli Foreign Ministry announced.

"Erdoğan is following in the footsteps of Saddam Hussein and threatening to attack Israel. He should only remember what happened there and how it ended,’ Katz wrote on X in the wake of Erdoğan’s threats.

In 2003, US troops invaded Iraq. The military invasion led to the overthrow of the then Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. Three years later, Hussein was executed for massacring the Kurdish and Shiite Arab population.

Relations between Israel and Turkey have deteriorated since the start of the Gaza war last October. Erdoğan regards Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, as a resistance group, while most NATO countries and Israel see it as a terrorist militia.