Under the deal, to be signed Tuesday in Jerusalem and Ankara, Israel will pay $20 million in compensation to the families of the nine Turkish citizens killed in a 2010 raid on a ship, the Mavi Marmara, attempting to break Israel’s Gaza blockade, Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said, according to i24news.
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Both sides had been motivated to complete the deal in recent months, as Israel searches for potential customers for its newfound energy reserves in the Dead Sea and NATO-allied Turkey strives to regain regional power, according to Al-Jazeera.
Turkey formal asked Israel for an apology and compensation for the families of Mavi Marmara raid victims, and demanded the removal of Israel’s Gaza blockade as conditions for the normalization of relations.
Turkey obtained aid concessions to be reached to Palestine, with a vessel carrying 10,000 tons of humanitarian aid setting off on July 1 from Turkey to Israel’s Ashdod port.
“This is a positive development for both sides”, said Galia Lindestrauss, an expert in Israeli-Turkish relations at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv.
President Tayyip Erdogan spoke with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas by telephone on Sunday night and told him a deal had been reached with Israel to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza, sources from the Turkish presidency said.
“Gaza doesn’t just need an electricity plant or a hospital where people can get treatment, Gaza needs many things, it needs a lot of support, not just a hospital, or a passage to let us in and out”, he said.
Hebrew newspapers had previously reported that the reconciliation agreement stated that Turkey will not allow Hamas Movement to practice any military actions against Israel from Turkish lands while it can still retain its offices in Turkey for diplomatic activities. A Hamas official claimed that Erdoğan contacted the terrorist group and said he needed to make the deal “in order to save Turkey’s interests”. Turkey also has tense relations with Russian Federation and is looking to Israel to help supply natural gas.
Although the two governments will appoint ambassadors immediately following the agreement’s ratification, it is premature to hope that Israel and Turkey will once again be the close allies they were for decades.
Israel has fought three wars with Palestinian militants in Gaza since 2008, including a devastating 50-day conflict in the summer of 2014.
He said that Erdogan agreed to instruct “relevant Turkish agencies to assist in every way in the return of the POWs and missing on a humanitarian basis”.
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The Hamas-run agricultural ministry in Gaza announced on Monday that it was putting an end to importing Israeli watermelons into the Strip.
