A senior Hamas official based in Turkey praised Erdoğan for rejecting what he called “Zionist propaganda” concerning the October 7 massacre and declared that Hamas was prepared to sacrifice all its members in its war against Israel.
Musa Akkari made the comments in a September 2025 address uploaded to the ONDER YouTube channel. He claimed that Gaza had presented an “honorable image” and falsely asserted that Hamas had not targeted a single white flag.
Akkari said every Hamas member was ready to be “martyred” so that “one Malaysian child” could pray at Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque. Referring to October 7, he said the attack had “cracked” Israel’s wall and that the Islamist nation must now use “iron fists” to destroy it.
In an earlier interview, Akkari discussed his arrival in Turkey after being released in the 2011 Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange. He had been convicted of involvement in the kidnapping and murder of Israeli police officer Nissim Toledano.