Israeli footballer returning home after Turkish arrest over Gaza war message
Turkish authorities have released the Israeli football player Sagiv Jehezkel from police custody and he will return to his home country on Monday, the foreign ministry in Jerusalem announced on Monday morning.
Jehezkel had been detained in Antalya after wearing a bandage on his left wrist during a match with the words “100 days”, the date of the Hamas militant attack that precipitated Israel’s war in Gaza, and a Star of David.
Israel’s defence minister accused Turkey on Monday of serving as a “de facto executive arm of Hamas” after Jehezkel’s police detention. In a post on X, Yoav Gallant reminded Turkey of Israel’s swift assistance to it after last year’s earthquake and called Jehezkel’s treatment “a manifestation of hypocrisy and ingratitude”.
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Since the start of the conflict, the Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, a traditional supporter of the Palestinian cause, has repeatedly described Israel as a “terrorist state”, insisting Hamas is a “group of liberators”.
On Sunday Turkey’s justice minister announced an investigation into Jehezkel over the bandage incident for suspected “incitement to hate”, after his club, Antalyaspor, sacked him over the matter.
After scoring a goal for his team against Trabzonspor, Jehezkel revealed a message which read “100 days. 07/10” on the bandage. The message was a reference to the Hamas attack on Israel on 7 October and the number of days that more than 130 Israeli hostages have been held in Gaza.