Turkey views Hamas as 'resistance group,' Erdogan tells Fox News

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told U.S. network Fox News on Monday that his country does not consider Hamas a terrorist organization, but rather a "resistance group." Speaking earlier at a U.N. conference on Palestine, the Turkish leader accused Israel of committing genocide and of seeking to make the creation of a Palestinian state impossible.

"The aim of the Netanyahu government is to make it impossible to establish a Palestinian state and to forcibly displace as many Palestinians as possible," the Turkish head of state said. "Israel, which originated from a society once victimized by the Holocaust, is today committing genocide against neighbors with whom it has shared the land and water for millennia," he added.

Several countries on Monday recognized a Palestinian state from the U.N. podium, in a historic but mostly symbolic gesture.