“Turkey is no longer a temporary mediator — it has become a central player and one of the architects of the new regional order.”
This is how Oded Ilam, former head of the counter-terrorism unit in Israel’s Mossad, described Turkey’s rising role in the negotiations that led to the ceasefire agreement in Gaza.
Turkey, which had been involved in the Gaza crisis from the early stages, was not initially a main player in the two-year-long talks sponsored jointly by Qatar and Egypt.
However, Ankara made the decisive difference when it threw its full weight behind the negotiations alongside Cairo and Doha — a move that ultimately secured the ceasefire.
For this, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan received repeated praise from U.S. President Donald Trump, most recently during the Peace Conference held in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, where Trump publicly thanked Erdoğan and acknowledged Turkey as one of the primary guarantors of the agreement.
A New Axis of Coordination
This clear alignment between Washington and Ankara — or more precisely between Trump and Erdoğan — has deeply unsettled the Israeli establishment.
Oded Ilam warned that “Erdoğan, with Trump’s support, has the ability to turn any crisis into an opportunity — and he has done so once again.”
Israeli anxiety also stems from Turkey’s expected post-war role — in managing Gaza’s security arrangements, reconstruction, and the establishment of a new civil administration.
As Noa Lazimi, a specialist at the Misgav Institute for National Security, put it:
“Including Turkey in the Gaza agreement means recognising it as a major Sunni power and accepting the fact that no comprehensive regional settlement — especially concerning the Palestinian issue — can succeed without Turkey’s participation.”
Ankara’s Strategic Advantage
Tel Aviv understands that Turkey’s approach to Gaza differs fundamentally from Iran’s.
Unlike Tehran, Ankara enjoys broader acceptance in the Muslim world, free from the sectarian rifts that have widened over the past two decades. Turkey has also pursued balanced relations with Arab states such as Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, and Yemen, unlike Iran’s destabilising policies in those arenas.
Over the past few years, Turkey’s diplomacy has mended ties across the region that were strained during the Arab Spring era. The Gaza war, therefore, became an opportunity for serious joint action — positioning Turkey as a bridge rather than a wedge in the Islamic world.
Israel knows very well that Turkey will not face the same obstacles Iran did.
Israeli counter-terrorism expert Ely Karmon cautioned that “this development will be another long-term threat to Israel — in addition to the Syrian front.”
Turkey’s Vision: Preserving Gaza
The first pillar of Turkey’s Gaza strategy — which clashes directly with Israeli ambitions — is to preserve Gaza with its people and resistance, even under the worst-case scenario of a weapons freeze or partial disarmament.
For Turkey, the Palestinian resistance is seen as a forward defence line, not just for Palestine but for Anatolia itself.
President Erdoğan previously likened it to the historic Kuva-yi Milliye — the National Resistance movement that spearheaded Turkey’s War of Independence after World War I.
Therefore, it was never expected that Ankara would allow the resistance to collapse. Yet, in the face of Israel’s genocidal war against Gaza’s civilians, Turkey prioritised halting the massacre, even if that meant temporarily freezing the resistance’s operations.
Turkey has experienced similar realities before — such as in Syria, when it joined the Astana process and de-escalation zones to protect what remained of the revolution in Idlib and to prevent greater strategic losses.
That tactical pause allowed Syrian forces later to re-organise and regain ground as regional dynamics shifted.
From this perspective, Tel Aviv fears that Turkey’s involvement in Gaza will not aim to dismantle the resistance’s infrastructure but may instead strengthen and preserve it, as Ankara once did with Syrian revolutionary forces.
Moreover, keeping Gaza’s population in place and preventing their displacement would deal a serious blow to Israel’s demographic engineering plans aimed at emptying the Strip for future settlements.
The Turkish Return
If the ceasefire roadmap proceeds as planned, Turkey is expected to deploy forces within an international peace-keeping mission tasked with overseeing Gaza’s reconstruction and stability.
For Israel, this would be a nightmare scenario: Turkish troops returning to the borders of historical Palestine for the first time in over a century.
Ely Karmon emphasised that “Turkey is militarily far stronger than Iran.”
He also reminded that Ankara has been economically and politically confronting Israel — banning Israeli ships from its ports, blocking military flights, boycotting Israeli products, opposing its gas exploration, and even signing maritime agreements with Libya that limit Israel’s access to the Mediterranean.
Recently, Erdoğan’s firm stance at the Sharm el-Sheikh Peace Conference embarrassed the occupation government when he refused to attend if Netanyahu was present, forcing Israel’s prime minister to withdraw from the event.
Such confrontations make it intolerable for Israel to imagine Turkish forces stationed in Gaza, seeing it as a strategic counter-move by Erdoğan — the same leader who once warned against Israeli troops approaching Turkey’s borders.
Israeli analysts also believe that if Turkish military and construction forces become part of Gaza’s rebuilding, Hamas will remain an influential and unbreakable force in the Strip — a reality Israel is desperate to avoid.
A New Regional Cooperation
Another source of Israeli anxiety lies in Turkey’s cooperative approach with neighbouring Muslim states during the Gaza crisis.
Rather than acting alone, Ankara moved through joint initiatives within the Arab League and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), forming a ministerial committee representing multiple Arab and Islamic nations.
Turkey also led tripartite coordination with Egypt and Qatar, which successfully persuaded Washington to support the ceasefire and launch the reconstruction phase, as confirmed by Trump in his Sharm el-Sheikh remarks.
Oded Ilam pointed out that Turkey has been enhancing its naval and regional power for over a decade — developing advanced submarines, light aircraft carriers, and offensive maritime capabilities, while expanding cooperation with several Middle Eastern states.
What most disturbs Tel Aviv, however, is that these moves coincide with growing security cooperation between Turkey and Egypt.
Their recent joint naval exercises mark one of the most significant geo-strategic outcomes of the “Al-Aqsa Flood” — showing how the war has pushed former rivals toward coordinated efforts to counter Israeli expansionism.
Consequently, Ankara is expected to consolidate this regional partnership, particularly with Cairo, making it a cornerstone of its post-war Gaza strategy — while Israel will likely seek ways to sabotage or contain this cooperation.
Beyond Gaza: Turkey’s Strategic Horizon
The diplomatic success that Turkey achieved in ending the Gaza war — and Trump’s open appreciation for Erdoğan’s efforts — will be leveraged by Ankara to advance its regional security vision and reinforce its leadership role.
Syria will likely become the next theatre of this strategy.
Turkey aims to eliminate the threat posed by the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), either through negotiation or force, before the end of this year.
Ankara expects that Trump — who still needs Erdoğan’s mediation in Ukraine due to his ties with both Moscow and Kyiv — will ease U.S. protection over the SDF.
Resolving this security issue will strengthen the Syrian state’s defences, particularly in Suwayda, and contribute to stabilising the region in ways that directly limit Israel’s military reach.
Israel understands that a revived Syrian state, supported by Turkish coordination, represents a direct strategic threat to its dominance in the Levant.
In Conclusion
Israeli analyst Shai Gal summarised the Israeli elite’s anxiety:
“The next stage is not military but cognitive — Israel must impose its narrative before Doha and Ankara reshape it in the language of Hamas. If they are allowed to sit at the table, Israel’s pause becomes a defeat; if they are excluded, a new order may emerge — decisive victory, unmediated sovereignty, and lasting deterrence.”
Yet both Qatar and Turkey were present in the first phase of the agreement — and their influence over the next stages of Gaza’s future remains inevitable.
