Turkey With A Massive Roundup Of Purported Israeli Spies

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Türkiye arrested 33 people suspected of spying for Israel on Tuesday and is reportedly pursuing another 13 believed to be involved with the West Jerusalem's Mossad intelligence agency, according to Anadolu Agency.

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Ronen Bar, director of the Israeli Shin Bet intelligence agency, warned last month that his officers planned to hunt down Hamas operatives “everywhere, in Gaza, in the West Bank, in Lebanon, in Türkiye, in Qatar.”

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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has warned Israel that it would face “serious consequences” if it continued attempting to attack Hamas officials in his country. While Türkiye and Israel had begun to normalize ties before war was declared on Hamas and Gaza was bombed with unprecedented intensity, both countries have since withdrawn ambassadors from each other’s territory.

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“He takes support from the West, he receives all kinds of support from the US, and with all that support, 20,000 Gazans have been killed,” Erdogan said. That number has since increased to 21,800, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. Israel vowed to destroy Hamas and its leaders following the October 7 attack by the militant group that left 1,200 Israelis dead and saw more than 200 others taken prisoner.

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Critics of the military operation that followed have pointed to the high civilian death toll, admissions by military officials that civilian infrastructure had been deliberately targeted, and leaked government documents describing plans to move the entire Palestinian population out of Gaza as proof that it is Palestinian civil society that is being targeted, rather than the militant group that governs the territory.

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Many high-ranking Hamas officials reside or spend significant time outside Gaza and the West Bank, including in Türkiye, where the group has an office in Istanbul. Erdogan has said the militant group is “defending its lands” and fighting for the liberation of Palestinians.

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Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization (MIT) and the counter-terrorism bureau of the Istanbul prosecutor’s office arrested 33 suspects as part of an operation aimed at disrupting Mossad efforts to target foreign nationals in the country, Ali Yerlikaya posted on his X account.

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“We will never allow espionage activities against the national unity and solidarity of our country!” wrote the interior minister. Israel’s Foreign Ministry declined to comment on the reported arrests. Last month, the Wall Street Journal reported that Israel’s intelligence agencies were working to assassinate Hamas leaders across the Middle East, including in Turkey, as its forces battle the terrorist group in the Gaza Strip.

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Since December 2022, the MIT and Istanbul police have announced three operations uncovering Mossad cells in the country. The most recent was in July of last year, when Turkey announced it had arrested seven Arabs working for the Mossad intelligence on targets in Lebanon and Syria.

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