01 March 2019•Update: 01 March 2019
By Mahmut Geldi
BEIRUT
Turkey has remained loyal to the Palestinian people and resistance, Ahmed Abdulhadi, Hamas’s representative in Lebanon, said Friday.
“Along with a few other countries, Turkey has stood by the Palestinian people, despite the rush by a number of Arab states to normalize their relations with Israel,” Abdulhadi told Anadolu Agency.
Turkey, he added, had “broken” Israel’s years-long blockade of the Gaza Strip by sending humanitarian aid to the embattled territory by sea -- at the cost of several Turkish lives.
A raid by Israeli commandos on Turkey’s Mavi Marmara aid flotilla in 2010 led to the death of eight Turkish nationals and one American of Turkish descent. A tenth passenger died after nearly four years in a coma.
Since 2007, the Hamas-run Gaza Strip has groaned under an Israeli/Egyptian blockade that has gutted its economy and deprived its roughly two million inhabitants of many basic commodities.
Regarding Palestine-Lebanon ties, Abdulhadi called for the enhancement of the two countries’ “security-based relationship”.
He also called on Lebanese officials to ease security restrictions imposed on Palestinians living in refugee camps in Lebanon.
Writing by Erdoğan Çağatay Zontur
