The First Turkish Martyr of “Al-Aqsa Storm”

On Tuesday, Israeli troops fatally shot a Turkish national in Jerusalem. Israeli police officials said 34-year-old Hasan Saklanan was shot dead after he stabbed an officer. 

The officials noted that the Turkish man rushed at a police cop near the Herod’s Gate entrance and stabbed the officer in the upper body and injured him. 

Stabbing attacks frequently take place against the Israeli occupation forces in the West Bank in response to the regime’s crimes. 

But, it is extremely rare for a foreign national to carry out such attacks.  

Israeli sources say Saklanan entered Israel legally on Monday as a visitor, via the Jordan River Crossing with Jordan.

The killing of the Turkish national is reminiscent of Israel’s 2010 raid on activists aboard the Mavi Marmara ship.

The Mavi Marmara was owned and run by the IHH Humanitarian Relief Foundation, a Turkish NGO. 

The ship was part of a flotilla seeking to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza in defiance of a blockade on the strip imposed by Israel since 2007.

Eight Turkish nationals and an American-Turkish activist were shot dead during the Israeli raid. Another Turkish national later succumbed to his injuries. 

The international community failed to hold Israel to account for killing activists on the Mavi Marmara ship at that time. 

And more than a decade later, Israel is perpetrating cold-blooded massacres in the West Bank and Gaza. 

According to the Palestinian Health Ministry, Israeli forces and settlers have killed nearly 500 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and injured 4,800 others since the Gaza war erupted on October 7. 

Israeli troops have also arrested almost 8,500 Palestinians in the West Bank. Around 3,660 of them are held illegally under the so-called administrative detention policy which keeps Palestinians behind bars without any charge or trial. 

Nonetheless, large-scale killings of Palestinians by Israeli forces and settlers as well as harsh punitive measures have failed to prevent West Bank people from putting up stiff resistance against the regime.

In Gaza, Israel has slaughtered more than 34,000 Palestinians under the pretext of targeting Hamas fighters. 

Israel has not only failed to eliminate Hamas but also support for the resistance movement has grown in Gaza and the West Bank. 

The stabbing attack by a Turkish citizen in the West Bank, an incident which has not taken place in recent memory, is indicative of rising support for Palestinian people and the resistance movement beyond Palestine. 

The heroic act clearly shows that anti-Israel sentiment has been exponentially growing in the face of the atrocious crimes that the regime is committing.

It also sheds light on the fact that the normalization of ties between some Arab states and Israel has failed to cover up Israel’s fascist nature. 

People in the West Asia region consider Israel as an occupier with a long record of heinous crimes against Palestinians, although some states try to establish or maintain ties with the regime.