'No fuel for you': Turkish airport refuses to refuel Israeli plane
Turkish airport workers have reportedly refused to refuel an Israeli passenger plane that had made an emergency landing in the country, as means of conveying their protest at the regime's genocidal war on the Gaza Strip.
The aircraft, which had departed from the Polish capital Warsaw en route to Tel Aviv, landed in Antalya in southwestern Turkey on Sunday, allegedly to get medical attention to an unwell passenger, The Times of Israel reported.
It was, however, forced to head to Rhodes in Greece to refuel after the Turkish airport staff denied it their services.
The plane then took off to Greece, where “it will refuel before taking off to Israel,” the Israeli regime’s El Al airline said.
A Turkish diplomatic source, meanwhile, offered a different narrative.
“Fuel was to be provided to the plane due to humanitarian considerations, but as the relevant procedure was about to be completed, the captain decided to leave of his own accord,” the source said.
Turkey has been seeking to present itself as an opponent of the Israeli war that has killed more than 37,800 Palestinians, most of them women and children, and left nearly 87,000 others injured.
In early May, the country said it was suspending its exports to the occupied territories as long as the regime retained a crippling siege that it has been enforcing against Gaza simultaneously with the brutal military onslaught.
Reports, however, have shown that Turkey continues to serve as a main source of basic goods for the regime by bypassing its own ban on supplying the commodities to the occupying entity.
Last month, reports said since the enforcement of the ban by Ankara, “Turkish goods have been re-routed through Greece and other nearby countries” to reach the occupied territories.
“The Israeli authorities don't even ask Turkish companies to amend their certificate of origin to re-export the goods through Greece because it would increase the costs further, so they are Turkish products,” it cited one Turkish businessman as saying.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's government suffered “significant” election losses in March.
The losses had been mainly incurred due to dissatisfaction with the government’s policy towards the Israeli regime on the part of the government’s supporters, who were outraged by the Israeli war on Gaza.
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