Ankara, October 22: Turkey’s public broadcaster TRT has removed scenes of Israeli violence against Palestinians from a TV series that caused a diplomatic row with Israel, the producer was quoted as saying Thursday.
A scene showing Israeli soldiers shooting a row of blindfolded Palestinians was cut from the second episode, broadcast on Tuesday, Selcuk Cobanoglu told the Milliyet daily.
“Each broadcaster has its own regulations of supervision… We don’t have objections to this situation,” he said.
Cobanoglu rejected accusations that the programme was inciting hatred against Israel, insisting that the main theme was about love “and this will become more obvious in the upcoming episodes.”
TRT officials were not available for comment.
The series — “Separation: Palestine In Love and In War” — went on air on October 13, infuriating Israel.
The first episode portrayed Israeli forces as shooting innocent Palestinian civilians, insulting and ridiculing them.
Israeli soldiers were shown killing a newborn baby, a little girl and an elderly man on his way to pilgramage in Mecca.
Observers say the series was inspired by true events and actions carried out by Israeli soldiers.
The series fuelled already simmering tensions between the long-time regional allies over Turkey’s exclusion of Israel from joint military exercises the week before.
Turkey has said bilateral ties will continue to suffer unless Israel ends “the humanitarian tragedy” in the Gaza Strip and revives peace talks with the Palestinians.
—Agencies