Turkey declares day of mourning for Haniyeh, lowers flag to half-mast at Tel Aviv embassy

Following Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's announcement of a day of mourning for the assassination of former Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh, the flag outside of the Turkish Embassy in Tel Aviv on Friday could be seen lowered to half-mast.

In response to the lowered flag, Israel's Foreign Minister Israel Katz ordered Turkey's deputy ambassador to Israel to receive a "stern reprimand" and slammed the embassy representatives. 

In his post to X, formally Twitter, on the matter, Katz also wrote that Israel "will not accept expressions of participation in mourning for a murderer like Ismail Haniyeh who was the head of the Hamas terrorist organization that committed acts of rape and murder on October 7."

Representatives of the embassy should go 'mourn in Turkey'

"If the representatives of the embassy want to mourn, let them go to Turkey and mourn together with their master Erdogan, who embraces the terrorist organization Hamas and supports its acts of murder and atrocities," the post concluded. 

הוריתי לזמן את סגן השגריר הטורקי בישראל לשיחת נזיפה חמורה בעקבות הורדת הדגל הטורקי לחצי התורן בשגרירות טורקיה בת"א על רקע חיסולו של איסמעיל הנייה מנהיג ארגון הטרור חמאס.מדינת ישראל לא תקבל ביטויים של השתתפות באבל כלפי רוצח כמו איסמעיל הנייה שעמד בראש ארגון הטרור חמאס שביצע את…

— ישראל כ”ץ Israel Katz (@Israel_katz) August 2, 2024

National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir also immediately slammed the embassy, writing on X that "representatives of the Turkish Embassy in Israel are invited to take down the flag completely and return home. Shameful."

MK Avigdor Lieberman called the flag being lowered in Tel Aviv "one big disgrace."

"It is impossible for the country that, at the beginning of the war, sided with the terrorist organizations and threatened just this week to invade the State of Israel to have an embassy in the heart of Tel Aviv," Liberman added in his X post.

Other Turkish embassies around the world have also made the decision to lower the flag to half-mast as well.

President Erdogan's call for a day of mourning comes less than a week after he threatened Israel, making a statement saying, “We must be very strong so that Israel can’t do these ridiculous things to Palestine. Just like we entered Karabakh, just like we entered Libya, we might do similar to them."