The Israeli Palestinian Post

Hamas and Syrian Sunni websites spread on Saturday that the Turkish Air Force was rushed to northern Syria, during the Israeli Air Force attack on the country on Saturday evening. In our assessment, the Turkish planes did not cross the border into Syria: Last week, we reported on the meeting between the Turkish intelligence chief and Hamas leaders in Ankara, which a day after Hamas struck the IDF's 414th Battalion in Gaza, killing a scout and seriously wounding three female soldiers. The Hamas-Turkish intelligence chief meeting in Ankara on April 20 (see today in the column – Diary) is, in our assessment, part of the increasingly deepening Turkish Palestinian coordination that includes Hamas and the Palestinian Authority.In this context, Abu Mazen's curses towards Hamas last week, "sons of bitches," are also part of a Palestinian deception aimed at ostensibly distancing the Palestinian Authority from the Turkish plan in which Hamas is already involved (see today's editorial). If the Israeli Air Force had crossed into Turkish airspace in northern Syria on Saturday evening, following the deception of a Turkish military movement promoted by Palestinian Syrian propaganda, then Turkey, as a member of NATO, could have brought the Western military organization into the picture of the war in the Middle East. In our assessment, Turkish planes did not enter Syrian airspace at all when the IDF attacked, contrary to the information promoted by Hamas and Sunni Syrian websites, since the Turkish military's goal was the opposite – to cause the IDF to enter Turkish airspace, and to indicate this as an act of war against a NATO member state.

In northwestern Syria, Turkey holds the Hatay region, which is a disputed area between it and Syria; Turkey considers the region part of its sovereign territory. It is possible that the Turkish Palestinian exercise was practiced in this area, but we do not know for sure. Turkey’s fundamental goal is to move the Palestinians from the Saudi axis to the Turkish axis, and its membership in NATO could also be a tool for achieving this goal. This week, Erdogan announced the imminent operation of Turkey's first nuclear reactor for electricity production. The Turkish president added in the same breath that Turkey will soon begin mining gold in Niger. However, the mineral that Niger is known for is not gold, which is found in relatively small quantities on its territory, but uranium, which is mined in abundance, and is a central component of Niger's economy.The fanatical government in Israel, as we have warned many times in the past, has created an adversary with political and military power that is unknown in the current Middle East, when it refused to end the war in Gaza. Now Turkey is uniting the Palestinian public against Israel and is trying to lead all its factions as one political entity under its auspices. The story of a near-air battle between Turkey and Israel is one of the first fruits of the joint initiative.

The IDF spokesman's response also fits our assessment. We asked for his response to the news that the Turks launched planes into the airspace in northern Syria during the Israeli attack. The spokesman replied: I am not aware of anything like that.