Turkey's president, Tayyip Erdogan, has escalated his verbal attacks on Israel and its leader, Benjamin Netanyahu, by comparing them to Nazi Germany and Adolf Hitler.
"They used to speak ill of Hitler - what difference do you have from Hitler?" Erdogan said, addressing Netanyahu. "They are going to make us miss Hitler. Is what this Netanyahu is doing any less than what Hitler did? It is not," he added.
Erdogan also likened Israel's military operations in Gaza to the persecution of Jewish people by the Nazis. He said that Israel was a "terror state" that had no respect for human rights or international law.
Erdogan has been a vocal critic of Israel since the outbreak of the latest conflict in Gaza, and has expressed his solidarity with Hamas, the Islamist group that controls the enclave. He has refused to label Hamas as a terrorist organization, and has accused Israel of committing genocide and ethnic cleansing against the Palestinians.
Despite Erdogan's harsh rhetoric, Turkey has not severed its economic ties with Israel, which amount to billions of dollars annually. This has drawn criticism from some of Erdogan's political rivals and regional allies, such as Iran, who have called for a boycott of Israel.
Israel has responded to Erdogan's remarks by dismissing them as baseless and outrageous. Prime Minister Netanyahu said that Erdogan was the last person who could lecture Israel on morality, given his record of oppressing the Kurds and jailing journalists.
"Erdogan, who commits genocide against the Kurds, who holds a world record for imprisoning journalists who oppose his rule is the last person who can preach morality to us," Netanyahu said in a statement.
The exchange of insults between the two leaders has further strained the already tense relations between Turkey and Israel, which have deteriorated in recent years over various issues, such as the recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital, the Turkish invasion of northern Syria, and the maritime dispute in the eastern Mediterranean.
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