Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan again rejected a US proposal to relocate Palestinians from Gaza and said Israel should pay for the damage it caused there and for reconstruction to begin.
“We do not consider the proposal to exile the Palestinians from the lands they have lived in for thousands of years as something to be taken seriously,” Erdogan said during a visit to Malaysia on Monday.
“No one has the power to force the Palestinian people to experience a second Nakba,” he added, referring to the mass displacement of Palestinians after the creation of Israel in 1948.
Erdogan, who is on a four-day tour of Malaysia, Indonesia and Pakistan, highlighted the severe destruction in Gaza.
He said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government should look for funds to “compensate” for what he said was damage amounting to $100 billion “instead of looking for a place for the people of Gaza.”
