Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday called Israel a “terrorist state”, condemning the loss of life linked to Israel’s bombing of the Gaza Strip to fight Hamas, AFP reported.

“I say this clearly: Israel is a terrorist state,” Erdogan told members of his party in the Turkish parliament two days before his visit to Germany.

“We criticize the Israeli government, but we do not forget those who openly support these massacres and those who do everything possible to legitimize them,” he added, referring to the United States and other Western countries that support Israel.

“They are trying to justify the murderers,” the Turkish president condemned, referring to the West. “We are facing genocide.”

On Tuesday, the German chancellor called “absurd” the Turkish president’s recent accusations of “fascism” against Israel, which has been at war with Hamas since October 7.

On Friday, Erdogan launched an attack on Israel, which he said is “trying to build a 75-year-old state on territory stolen from the Palestinian people” and whose legitimacy is “in question because of its own fascism.”

The head of the Turkish state spoke at the celebrations on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the death of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of the Republic of Turkey.

These statements caused outrage, especially in Germany, where the existence of Israel is considered “justification of the state”, given Germany’s responsibility for the Holocaust.

After this visit to Berlin, the first of 2020, Erdogan is due to travel to Egypt and then host the Iranian president in the coming weeks.

A staunch Muslim and supporter of the Palestinian cause, the Turkish president has embraced the Hamas cause as the Palestinian death toll in Gaza rises following Israeli retaliation following the Islamist movement’s deadly Oct. 7 attack that killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, in Israel.

According to Hamas, at least 11,240 Palestinians, again mostly civilians, have been killed in bombings since the start of the war.