Turkey’s response to Israel's war on Gaza following Hamas’s surprise 7 October 2023 attack has revealed a striking balance between impassioned pro-Palestinian rhetoric and pragmatic restraint.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government, rooted in the pro-Islamist Justice and Development Party (AKP), has long championed the Palestinian cause as a core tenet of its identity.
In the past, Ankara willingly strained ties with Israel in outspoken defence of Palestinian rights. Yet in the post-7 October context, Turkey’s actions have often stopped short of matching its words.
While Erdogan vociferously condemned Israel’s onslaught in Gaza as “genocide,” his government quietly avoided a complete rupture in diplomatic or economic relations.
This dual-track approach - talking tough while acting cautiously - underscores how Turkey is navigating a complex geopolitical tightrope, reflecting a balance between ideological solidarity and the hard realpolitik of economic constraints, NATO obligations, and strategic competition with regional rivals like Iran.
The AKP's Palestine policy: Passion vs. pragmatism
Turkey was the first Muslim-majority country to recognise Israel in 1949, maintaining decades of mostly cordial ties. But under Erdogan’s AKP (in power since 2002), support for Palestine became a defining theme of Turkish foreign policy.
Early in his tenure, Erdogan even sought rapprochement with Israel - visiting in 2005 to mend fences. However, repeated conflicts in Gaza soon inflamed Turkish public opinion. In 2004, Erdogan blasted Israel’s killing of Hamas founder Ahmed Yassin as “a kind of terrorism.”
The breaking point came after Israel’s late-2008 assault on Gaza (Operation Cast Lead), which killed over 1,000 Palestinians. A visibly angered Erdogan famously stormed off the stage at Davos in 2009 after a heated exchange with Israel’s president over Gaza.
The following year, Israeli commandos raided the Turkish Mavi Marmara aid flotilla to Gaza, killing nine Turkish activists. Ankara recalled its ambassador and downgraded relations, demanding an apology. Even as diplomatic ties frayed, Erdogan leveraged the Palestinian issue to burnish his image at home and across the Muslim world, lambasting Israel’s 2014 war in Gaza and threatening to cut ties after the US recognised Jerusalem as Israel’s capital in 2017.
Despite this combative posture, Turkey’s relationship with Israel has seesawed rather than severed. Pragmatism periodically prevailed. In 2016, Israel formally apologised and paid compensation for the flotilla incident, opening the door to a thaw.
Trade and security links quietly endured even during political rifts - in fact, bilateral trade increased from around $3.5 billion in 2010 to over $9 billion by 2022. Erdogan himself met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the first time in September 2023 on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, capping a renewed normalisation effort.
That optimism was short-lived. Hamas’s deadly rampage and Israel’s massive retaliation in Gaza plunged Turkey-Israel relations into another tailspin, arguably their most severe to date.
Still, as history shows, Ankara’s solidarity with Palestine has often been more demonstrative than truly destructive to its ties with Israel. This pattern set the stage for Turkey’s calibrated response after 7 October.
Post-7 October: From mediation to outrage - and limited action
When war ignited on 7 October 2023, Turkey initially struck a measured tone. Remembering the fruits of recent rapprochement, Erdogan hesitated to burn bridges. Ankara even angled to mediate, believing its unique links to both Hamas and Israel put Turkey “in an ideal position” to broker peace.
Turkish officials condemned Hamas’s killing of Israeli civilians and urged restraint in Israel’s response. But as Israel’s bombardment of Gaza intensified, killing thousands of Palestinians, Turkish restraint gave way to roaring rhetoric.
By late October, Ankara’s stance had hardened dramatically. Erdogan declared Hamas “not a terrorist organisation but a liberation group” fighting for Palestinian land, pointedly breaking with Western allies’ views. He cancelled a long-planned visit to Israel, accusing its government of betraying Turkey’s “good intentions” in the recent détente.
At a massive rally in Istanbul on 28 October - attended by hundreds of thousands waving Turkish and Palestinian flags - Erdogan railed that Israel was “openly committing war crimes” in Gaza and castigated Western leaders as the “main culprit” behind the “massacre” of Palestinians. Such fiery speeches amplified Turkey’s popular outrage and signalled an abrupt diplomatic chill.
Ankara soon matched the blistering words with symbolic moves - up to a point. In early November 2023, Turkey recalled its ambassador from Tel Aviv, citing Israel’s “continuing attacks against civilians” and refusal of ceasefire calls. Erdogan told Islamic leaders that Israel was acting like “the spoiled child of the West,” and by that month, he claimed Turkey had “severed all relations” with Israel.
Turkey also flexed its muscle in NATO: Ankara froze military cooperation with Israel through the alliance and blocked an Israeli bid to open a NATO liaison office, vowing no engagement until the war ended. In a rare snub, Turkey even denied Israeli President Isaac Herzog permission to fly through Turkish airspace for a climate summit, forcing the trip’s cancellation.
Yet for all these stinging rebukes, concrete actions remained restrained. Ankara stopped short of expelling Israel’s ambassador outright (Israel had pre-emptively pulled him amid security concerns during protests). Notably, unlike during past showdowns, Erdogan refrained from lashing out at Arab states for their muted support of Gaza, mindful of his ongoing rapprochement with powers like Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. This caution suggested Turkey did not want to wreck its broader regional realignments despite the Gaza crisis.
Most revealing was Turkey’s stance on economic ties. Despite mounting public calls to boycott Israel, Ankara initially avoided curtailing trade - a stark contrast to its harsh discourse. Well into late 2023, bilateral business continued more or less unabated, exposing the limits of Ankara’s outrage when material interests were at stake.
Indeed, for years, Turkey-Israel commerce was notoriously crisis-proof, and this time was no different at first. However, by the spring of 2024, the glaring dissonance between Ankara’s pro-Palestinian bluster and the reality of ships and planes still moving goods with Israel became untenable.
Facing rising domestic backlash, Erdogan’s government finally announced a suspension of trade with Israel starting in May 2024, declaring that all direct exports and imports (worth around $7 billion annually) would be halted until a “permanent” Gaza ceasefire. Hamas praised the move as “brave,” while Israel angrily called it a violation of trade norms.
Ankara’s embargo proved porous and quietly diluted. Within months, reports emerged that Turkish companies were rerouting goods via third countries such as Greece or through the Palestinian Authority to reach Israeli markets.
“The ban has not been strictly enforced while bilateral trade continues via Greece, Palestine, and other jurisdictions,” Giorgio Cafiero, CEO of Gulf State Analytics, told The New Arab.
Israeli officials likewise noted that Turkish exporters found ways around blocked ports. Crucially, Turkey also kept oil flowing through the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline, which carries Azerbaijani crude to Turkey’s Mediterranean port of Ceyhan and on to Israel.
That pipeline supplies a significant share of Israel’s oil needs (Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan together provide over 60% of Israel’s oil), a strategic link Ankara chose not to sever. Turkish officials argued that they were contractually bound to keep the BTC pipeline open or face breach-of-contract penalties.
In fact, halting those flows would have harmed Turkey’s credibility as a reliable energy transit hub and angered Baku, its close ally. Economic reality also loomed large: Turkey’s struggling economy, with sky-high inflation, made Ankara wary of losing any trade or investment.
Professor İlhan Uzgel, a prominent Turkish foreign policy analyst, succinctly describes Ankara’s approach as “söylemde sert, eylemde yumuşak” - hard in rhetoric, soft in action. The AKP’s identity is steeped in Palestinian advocacy and anti-Israel discourse, requiring fiery language to please its base, Uzgel notes.
But practical constraints - economic troubles, regional isolation, and a desire to stay in Washington’s good graces - “did not allow a harsh policy on the ground against Israel,” he told The New Arab.
In other words, Turkey’s leadership thundered from the podium about Gaza, even as it trod carefully in practice. This pattern continued into 2024: Erdogan fiercely condemned Israel’s onslaught, yet he also quietly kept channels open to the Biden administration and signalled openness to mending ties with a post-Netanyahu Israel. It is a textbook case of realpolitik overriding revolutionary zeal.
Giorgio Cafiero offers a similar assessment. “Turkey’s leadership has taken a strong moral stance against Israel since the genocide in Gaza began… Yet Turkey has also chosen to be pragmatic and has certain interests to protect, which limit the extent to which Ankara has been confrontational,” he explained.
In Cafiero’s view, Ankara’s bold rhetoric reflects its role as a leading Muslim-majority power where public opinion is passionately pro-Palestinian, making such a stance natural. At the same time, Turkey’s NATO obligations, economic interdependence with Israel, and regional ambitions all act as guardrails against over-escalation.
Even Ankara’s headline-grabbing trade ban in 2024 had “not had a significant impact on Israel’s economy,” Cafiero notes, underscoring that much of Turkey’s punitive posturing was ultimately restrained by pragmatism.
Regional chessboard: Azerbaijan, Syria, and the shadow of Iran
Turkey’s calibrated Gaza policy cannot be divorced from broader regional calculations. Erdogan’s harsh rhetoric over Gaza played well on the “Arab street” and burnished Turkey’s image (alongside Qatar) as a leading Sunni champion of Palestine - a role that also serves to undercut Shia Iran’s claim as the foremost defender of the Palestinian cause.
Indeed, analysts note that Erdogan’s Middle East strategy involves competing with Iran to be the loudest voice for Palestine, as part of a larger rivalry for regional influence. By vocally excoriating Israel’s actions in Gaza, Erdogan positions himself as the Muslim world’s statesman of conscience. This not only boosts Turkey’s soft power but also blunts Iran’s appeal among Sunni publics.
Turkey’s engagement with Hamas - hosting some exiled leaders in Istanbul and championing its political legitimacy - aligns with the AKP’s Islamist outlook. However, as Prof. Uzgel argues, this relationship yields few tangible strategic benefits for Turkey beyond symbolic value. “Hamas’s contribution to Ankara is not significant strategically – it’s largely an ideological link that Turkey maintains, similar to Qatar’s role,” he explained to TNA.
In essence, supporting Hamas keeps Turkey at the table on the Palestine issue and bolsters Erdogan’s credentials in the Islamic world, but it does not substantially enhance Turkey’s security or economy. This recognition has made it easier for Ankara to moderate its actions; championing Gaza brings prestige, but not at the price of courting direct conflict with Israel or the West.
Crucially, Turkey’s hard line on Gaza also had to be squared with the interests of its closest regional ally, Azerbaijan, which happens to be one of Israel’s key strategic partners. This three-way dynamic - Ankara–Baku–Tel Aviv - adds another layer of realpolitik to Turkey’s post-7 October stance.
Eldar Mamedov, a foreign policy expert and South Caucasus analyst, describes the Azerbaijan-Israel partnership as a “deep, strategic alliance” grounded in energy, defence, and intelligence ties. Baku has become a cornerstone of Israel’s energy security, supplying at least 40% of Israel’s oil imports via the BTC pipeline through Turkey (Together with Kazakh oil, that share rises to well over half of Israel’s needs). In exchange, Israel is a primary arms supplier to Azerbaijan, providing drones, missiles and other advanced weaponry that proved crucial in Baku’s victories over Armenia in 2020 and 2023.
Between 2016 and 2021, nearly 69% of Azerbaijan’s major arms imports came from Israel, amounting to an estimated $5 billion in defence contracts. This symbiotic “energy-for-arms” partnership has only deepened over time. Notably, Mamedov points out that Azerbaijan continued supplying oil to Israel even during the Gaza war of 2023, underscoring the depth of Baku’s commitment to its alliance with Tel Aviv.
For Ankara, Israel’s robust ties with Azerbaijan are not so much a threat as a pragmatic parallel to its own alliance with Baku. Turkey and Israel both benefit from a strong, secure Azerbaijan as a bulwark against shared adversaries, especially Armenia and Iran. Israeli arms helped empower Azerbaijan to reclaim Nagorno-Karabakh, indirectly advancing Turkey’s regional goals vis-à-vis Armenia.
There is also strategic convergence in countering Iran’s influence north of Iran’s border: Ankara and Tel Aviv alike quietly support Baku’s ambitious projects, such as the Zangezur corridor through Armenia (linking mainland Azerbaijan to Turkey via Nakhchivan), which Iran vehemently opposes. In this sense, Turkey tacitly welcomes Israel’s presence in the Caucasus as it aligns with Ankara’s interests in curbing Iranian and Russian sway in the region.
In April 2025 - even as Turkey’s leaders were still lambasting Israel in public - Azerbaijan hosted technical discussions between Turkish and Israeli officials to establish a military “deconfliction” mechanism in Syria. That meeting, confirmed by both sides, aimed to prevent accidental clashes as Turkey and Israel found themselves operating in the same theatre. It also highlighted the realpolitik undercurrent of Ankara’s strategy.
As Eldar Mamedov observes, Azerbaijan has been consciously positioning itself as a regional diplomatic hub by leveraging its close ties with both Ankara and Tel Aviv. By mediating between its two allies, Baku enhances its own international stature while providing Turkey and Israel a discreet channel to manage tensions. “Azerbaijan’s role in facilitating dialogue... despite their strained relations shows that strategic priorities can trump public posturing when necessary,” notes Mamedov, though he cautions that if Turkey-Israel frictions worsen, Baku could face pressures that test its neutral balancing.
Syria, however, looms as a potential flashpoint between Turkey and Israel that could override Gaza in shaping their future relations. In the aftermath of the Gaza war, Israel grew increasingly alarmed at Turkey’s rising influence in Syria, especially after speculative reports (later denied, but revealing of fears) that Turkey had a hand in installing a new government in Damascus following a hypothetical fall of the Assad regime.
In early 2025, an Israeli government panel went so far as to warn that Israel’s military must prepare for a direct confrontation with Turkey, suggesting that Turkey’s expansion in Syria could pose a threat “even more dangerous than the Iranian threat.” This marked a remarkable reversal of Israel’s traditional security focus, underlining how Turkey’s regional assertiveness has begun to unsettle Tel Aviv.
For now, both countries clearly prefer to avoid open conflict. But their forces edge uncomfortably close in Syria’s chaotic arena: Turkey’s army (and allied Syrian rebels) control parts of the north, while Israel conducts airstrikes against Iranian arms transfers and proxy militias deeper inside Syria.
The Azerbaijan discussions reflected this overlapping presence and how pragmatic deconfliction outweighs public acrimony. Both have an interest in curbing Iran in Syria’s endgame: Turkey opposes Iranian-backed militias near its border, and Israel targets those same militias’ supply. Such hedging reflects an acute awareness in Ankara that today’s adversary can be tomorrow’s necessary ally, especially on the ever-shifting Middle Eastern chessboard.
“Syria, more so than Gaza, could be the regional file that possibly leads to Turkey-Israel tensions escalating into something that extends beyond diplomatic and symbolic, toward something potentially more serious,” Cafiero told TNA.
The price and promise of pragmatism
Moving forward, Turkey is likely to continue this tightrope walk. A permanent rupture with Israel is not in the offing so long as Ankara benefits from selective engagement - be it economically, in energy transit, or in containing Iran.
Conversely, a full return to warm relations will be difficult as long as Erdogan and the AKP derive domestic legitimacy from championing the Palestinian cause (and as long as Israel’s hardline policies vis-à-vis Gaza and Jerusalem continue to inflame Turkish public opinion).
The duality of Turkey’s approach - fiery solidarity with Gaza, coupled with calibrated diplomacy - seems destined to endure. It reflects Turkey’s unique position straddling East and West: a NATO member with Islamist sensitivities, and a would-be EU nation that also sees itself as a defender of Muslim grievances.
In practice, Ankara will likely maintain support for Palestinian statehood and humanitarian aid to Gaza, push for international accountability for Israeli actions in forums like the UN, and coordinate with allies like Qatar to assist the Palestinians. But Turkey will just as likely shy away from measures that truly jeopardise its state interests, such as permanently shuttering trade or provoking a military clash with Israel.
In the end, Turkey’s stance since 7 October reveals a cold truth about regional politics: rhetoric is inexpensive, but repercussions are not. Erdoğan’s government reaped the soft-power rewards of standing up for Palestine in words, while cautiously sidestepping the worst risks that such a stance could invite.
This nuanced diplomacy may disappoint those who expected Ankara’s outrage to translate into decisive punitive action against Israel. However, it has allowed Turkey to navigate a major Middle East crisis without forfeiting its own strategic foothold.
As the region settles into an uneasy post-war recalibration, Turkey’s challenge will be converting its outspoken advocacy into tangible influence - for Gaza’s reconstruction, for reviving peace efforts, and for restraining future cycles of violence - all while keeping a watchful eye on its national interests. In striking this balance, Turkey demonstrates that even the most passionate foreign policy principles are ultimately tempered by the realities of power, geography, and necessity.
The true test of Ankara’s approach will be whether it can leverage its dual role - as both impassioned advocate and pragmatic player - to help forge a more stable and just regional order after Gaza’s agony, without sacrificing the critical alliances and stability upon which Turkey’s own prosperity depends
Burak Can Çelik is a geopolitical analyst and writer based in Istanbul. His work focuses on Middle East affairs, Turkish foreign policy, and international relations
Follow him on X: @_burakcancelik