Istanbul, 4 November 2023 (dpa/MIA) — Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan says he has broken off contact with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the Israeli airstrikes on the besieged Gaza Strip.

"Netanyahu is no longer an interlocutor for us in any sense. We have erased him, we have crossed him out," Erdoğan said in remarks carried by his press office.

Netanyahu "has lost the support of his citizens" and wants to earn support for the "massacres" in Gaza by "using religious terminology," Erdoğan said while on a return flight from Kazakhstan.

Ankara is, however, not severing diplomatic ties with Israel, he added.

Turkey is using "all diplomatic options" including talks with the Israeli intelligence and Foreign Ministry as well as Hamas and Palestinian authorities to "stop the bloodshed," the Turkish leader added.

Prior to Hamas militants' unprecedented rampage through Israeli towns on October 7 and Israel's heavy bombardment of Gaza, Erdoğan and Netanyahu had met in person on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in September and agreed to visit each other.

The Israeli prime minister was originally expected in Turkey in early November as part of a normalization process.