Turkiye rejects ‘disinformation’ by Israel FM on Ismail Haniyeh inheritance dispute

Turkiye has denied claims by Israel’s foreign minister of a dispute between the Turkish government and late Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh’s sons over withheld inheritance, insisting that the Israeli minister is purposefully spreading “disinformation”.

In a post on the social media platform X yesterday, Israel’s foreign minister Israel Katz claimed that “a conflict erupted between [Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan] and the sons of Ismail Haniyeh, who demanded the $3 billion held in Turkish bank accounts under their father’s name. Erdoğan refused to release the funds.”

Posing the question of how the late Hamas leader managed to “amass such a fortune” and what Erdogan’s “connection to the money” is, Katz insinuated that Turkiye and its government have been responsible for funding and supporting the Palestinian resistance group – a claim which Tel Aviv has repeatedly made due to Ankara’s diplomatic and mediatory relations it has had with Hamas’s political bureau over the years.

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Turkiye’s Presidential Communications Directorate denied the accusations, however, saying in a statement that Haniyeh did not have any savings in Turkish banks. Furthermore, it referred to the recent visits by the late Hamas leader’s sons, Abdussalam and Hammam Haniyeh, to president Erdogan to receive his condolences. “During the meeting, no such issue was raised”, the Directorate stated, accusing Israel of spreading disinformation campaigns.

Turkiye’s Foreign Ministry also rejected Katz’s claims as “slander intended for disinformation purposes”, stating that the “lies, aimed at diverting attention from the genocide taking place in Gaza, will not hinder our support for the Palestinian people”.

Since Israel’s ongoing offensive on the Gaza Strip following Hamas’s operating into Israeli territory on 7 October last year, the Turkish government has repeatedly criticised Israeli atrocities and war crimes in the besieged territory. That criticism has led to backlash by Israeli political figures in the country’s far-right ruling coalition – with foreign minister Katz chief among them – against Erdogan in particular.

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