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Ways The Israel-Turkey Reconciliation Affects Israel

Netanyahu traveled to Rome on Sunday to meet U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Israeli and Turkish officials were also in the Italian capital to finalize the deal.

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Prime Minister Netanyahu hailed the “strategic importance” of the accord, before stressing the “immense” positive implications for the Israeli economy.

Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said late on Monday the two countries might appoint ambassadors “in a week or two”.

Relations collapsed following Israel’s May 31 2010 raid on the Mavi Marmara, an aid ship trying to breach the blockade of Gaza.

The poll by Channel 10 found that 56 percent of Israelis oppose the deal that ends a six-year break in diplomatic ties between the two countries, while another 11 percent has no opinion, i24 news reported.

The only practical way for Turkey to restore its relations with Cyprus would be to help reach an agreement on a solution to the problem in ongoing negotiations between Greek Cypriot President Anastasiades and Turkish Cypriot leader Mustafa Akinci.

Hamas “hopes that Turkey will continue to support the Palestinian people, to work for the total lifting of the blockade and to pressure the Zionist occupier to stop its aggression”, it said. Netanyahu added that the deal will open Turkey to Israeli natural gas exports, and that the country could possibly serve as a gateway to European markets.

Israel is also deeply concerned with limiting the regional influence of its arch-foe Iran, and Turkey and Iran remain on opposing sides of the five-year civil war in Syria.

Under the deal, Turkey will also be allowed to deliver shipments of anything it wants to the Gaza Strip after the cargo passes through security checks at Israel’s southern Ashdod port, Israeli media reported earlier.

Senior Palestinian official Hanan Ashrawi says the deal is based on the self-interest of both parties.

He has more recently said that Turkey, Israel and the Palestinians and the region “have a lot to win from a normalisation process”.

He said he would lay out the deal in detail later in the day, but described it as having “immense implications for the Israeli economy, and I use that word advisedly”. The ships fit by the Free Gaza Movement and the Turkish Foundation for Human Rights and Freedoms and Humanitarian Relief (IHH) were carrying humanitarian and construction supplies to the blockaded Gaza Strip. This deal normalizes and reconstructs the relationship between the two countries.

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Yildirim confirmed that Israel would pay $20 million to the bereaved and those injured in the raid, also saying the Gaza blockade is now “largely lifted” through the deal. The militant Islamic group Hamas controls Gaza.

Turkey Israel sign deal to normalize ties after six years