ISTANBUL: Turkiye’s top diplomat has said Ankara has closed its ports and airspace to Israeli ships and planes.

“We have closed our ports to Israeli ships. We do not allow Turkish ships to go to Israeli ports.... We do not allow container ships carrying weapons and ammunition to Israel to enter our ports, nor do we allow their aircraft to enter our airspace,” Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan told lawmakers in a televised address on Friday.

Asked for clarification about the minister’s remarks, a Turkish diplomatic source said its airspace was “closed to all aircraft carrying weapons (to Israel) and to Israel’s official flights”.

It was not immediately clear when the airspace restrictions were put in place.

Hamas calls on ‘free nations’ to sever all ties with Israel

Turkiye refused to let the Israeli president’s plane cross its airspace in November, forcing him to cancel a planned visit to the COP29 climate conference in Azerbaijan. And in May, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu cancelled a visit to Baku after Ankara reportedly refused overflight rights.

Turkiye has been one of the harshest critics of Israel over its ongoing war on Gaza, accusing it of committing “genocide” in the Palestinian territory.

Israel’s biggest shipping firm ZIM said it had been informed that under new regulations passed by Ankara on August 22, “vessels that are either owned, managed or operated by an entity related to Israel will not be permitted to berth in Turkish ports”.

Fidan’s remarks were the first public acknowledgement of the ban.

Meanwhile, Palestinian group Hamas has urged governments across the world to ‘escalate punitive measures’. “We urge Turkiye, as well as Arab and Islamic countries and the free nations of the world, to escalate punitive measures against” Israel, Hamas said in a statement.

It called on countries to “sever all relations with it, and work to isolate it — so as to compel it to halt the genocide and destruction of Gaza”.

Published in Dawn, August 30th, 2025