ISTANBUL: Turkiye’s exports to Palestinian territories leapt sixfold in the first nine months of the year to $571.2 million, data showed on Tuesday, five months after the country halted trade with Israel in protest over its war in Gaza.
The 526 percent rise in exports occurred largely after the ban went into effect. In the first four months of the year, Turkish exports to Palestinian territories were up 35 percent to $49.4 million, according to data from the Turkish Exporters Assembly (TIM).
Turkish opposition lawmaker Mustafa Yeneroglu on Monday submitted questions to parliament about the sharp increase in exports to Palestinian areas and ongoing ship traffic from Turkiye to Israel, despite the trade ban.
Yeneroglu asked Trade Minister Omer Bolat to respond to local media reports that trade with Israel was quietly continuing through Palestinian companies, with shipping documents describing goods as going to Palestinian territories when they were actually going to Israel.
Asked for comment by Reuters, the Trade Ministry pointed to previous statements on the issue. On Sept. 18, it denied trade with Israel was continuing, reiterating that it ended on May 2.
It said Palestinian authorities had declared several times that Turkish goods were used exclusively in Palestinian areas.
These territories encompass the Gaza Strip, the Israeli-occupied West Bank, and Arab East Jerusalem.
The trade ministry imposed export restrictions on 54 categories of products to Israel in April before completely halting exports and imports in early May.
At the time, Turkiye said it would not resume trade with Israel, worth $7 billion a year, until a permanent ceasefire and humanitarian aid were secured in Gaza, becoming the first of Israel’s key commercial partners to take such a step.
Israel launched a devastating war against Hamas in Gaza a year ago after the Palestinian Islamist group’s deadly cross-border attack.
Turkiye says exports to Palestinians surge after halting trade with Israel over Gaza war
https://arab.news/bxsq8
Turkiye says exports to Palestinians surge after halting trade with Israel over Gaza war
- The 526 percent rise in exports occurred largely after the ban went into effect
- Turkish opposition lawmaker Mustafa Yeneroglu on Monday submitted questions to parliament about the sharp increase in exports to Palestinian areas
Drone attack on Sudan market kills 28: rights group
- Several drones struck the Al-Safiya area market outside the North Kordofan town of Sodari,
KHARTOUM: A drone attack on a crowded market in central Sudan killed 28 people, a rights group reported Monday, as the army and its paramilitary rivals traded aerial strikes in their battle for territory.
The attack occurred in a paramilitary-controlled area in the far north of Sudan’s Kordofan region, currently the fiercest frontline in the three-year-old war between the army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
According to the Emergency Lawyers, a group monitoring atrocities in the conflict, several drones hit the Al-Safiya market outside the town of Sodari in North Kordofan on Sunday.
“The attack occurred when the market was bustling with civilians, including women, children and the elderly,” the group said, adding that the toll was preliminary.
It gave no indication of who carried out the strike.
Sodari, a remote town where desert trade routes cross, is around 230 kilometers (132 miles) northwest of El-Obeid, the state capital of North Kordofan, which the RSF has been trying to encircle for months.
The Kordofan region has seen a surge in deadly drone attacks as both sides fight over the country’s vital east-west axis, which links the western RSF-held region of Darfur, through El-Obeid, to the army-controlled capital Khartoum and the rest of Sudan.
Across vast stretches of territory, attacks by both sides — many on remote towns and villages — have killed up to dozens of civilians at a time.
Last Wednesday, two children were killed and a dozen wounded in one strike on a school, while another severely damaged a United Nations warehouse storing famine relief supplies.
After consolidating their hold on Darfur last year, the RSF has pushed east through oil- and gold-rich Kordofan, in an attempt to seize Sudan’s central corridor.
Since April 2023, the war between the army and the RSF has killed tens of thousands of people and displaced around 11 million, creating the world’s largest hunger and displacement crises.
It has also effectively split the country in two, with the army holding the center, north and east while the RSF controls the west and, with their allies, parts of the south.
