Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan denounced Israel as a "cruel terrorist state" in a speech in the capital Ankara on Saturday in which he referred to the storming of the al-Aqsa Mosque [located in East Jerusalem] by the Israeli police.
"Israel, the cruel terrorist state, attacks the Muslims in Jerusalem -- whose only concern is to protect their homes ... and their sacred values -- in a savage manner devoid of ethics," Erdoğan stressed in his televised remarks.
He called on Israel to immediately end vile attacks against Al-Aqsa Mosque and Muslims in Jerusalem.
While expressing solidarity with the people in Jerusalem and Muslims in Palestine, Erdoğan urged everyone "who defines themselves as a human-being" to oppose the "oppressors polluting Jerusalem, which is sacred to all three religions, with immoral, unlawful, disrespectful attacks."
He also urged the entire world, especially Islamic countries, to take action against Israel's attacks on Al-Aqsa Mosque, Jerusalem and Palestinian homes.
Israeli forces fired stun grenades, tear gas, and rubber-coated bullets to disperse Muslim worshippers from the mosque, the world's third-holiest site for Muslims, on Friday evening.
According to the Palestine Red Crescent, at least 205 people were injured by Israeli forces in the Old City and Sheikh Jarrah neighborhoods.
Tensions have run high in the Sheikh Jarrah area all through the week as Israeli settlers have swarmed in after an Israeli court ordered the eviction of Palestinian families.
Since 1956, a total of 37 Palestinian families have been living in 27 homes in the neighborhood. However, illegal Jewish settlers have been trying to push them out on the basis of a law approved by the Israeli parliament in 1970.
Israel occupied East Jerusalem during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.
It annexed the entire city in 1980, in a move that has never been recognized by the international community.
The West Bank, including East Jerusalem, is seen as occupied territory under international law, thus making all Jewish settlements there illegal.
