Ankara, May 12: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has told Russian President Vladimir Putin that the international community should "give Israel a strong and deterrent lesson against its conduct toward the Palestinians.

That's according to the Turkish Presidential Communications Directorate, which said the two leaders talked by phone Wednesday about the escalating confrontation sparked by tension over contested Jerusalem.

The statement said Erdogan stressed the need for the international community to give Israel a strong and deterrent lesson and pressed for the United Nations Security Council to rapidly intervene with determined and clear messages to Israel. The statement said Erdogan suggested to Putin that an international protection force to shield the Palestinians should be considered.

Meanwhile, thousands of people in Istanbul defied a nationwide coronavirus curfew late Tuesday to demonstrate against Israel's attacks. A large convoy of cars drove toward the Israeli Consulate, waving Turkish and Palestinian flags. An image of the Palestinian and Turkish flags was projected onto the Israeli building.

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Dhaka (PTI): Unidentified gunmen on Monday shot in the head Motaleb Shikder, a second leader of Bangladesh’s violent student-led 2024 uprising.

The attack took place in southwestern Khulna city, days after the killing of prominent youth leader Sharif Osman Hadi.

"The Khulna Division head of NCP (National Citizen Party) and central coordinator of the party’s workers front, Motaleb Shikder, was shot a few minutes ago," NCP’s joint principal coordinator Mahmuda Mitu said in a Facebook post.

Mitu, a doctor, said Shikder was rushed to Khulna Medical College Hospital in a critical condition.

The Kaler Kantha newspaper, quoting hospital sources, said Shikder was shot on the left side of his head, and he was bleeding profusely when he was brought to the facility, where the doctors started emergency treatment.

The attack came days after Hadi, a prominent leader of the student-led protests last year that led to the ouster of the prime minister Sheikh Hasina-led Awami League government, was shot in the head on December 12 by masked gunmen at an election campaign in central Dhaka’s Bijoynagar area.

The 32-year-old Inqilab Mancha spokesperson died while undergoing treatment in Singapore on Thursday. Hadi was a candidate for the scheduled February 12 general elections.

The interim government of Muhammad Yunus staged a nationwide mourning for Hadi’s death on Saturday and said no stone would be left unturned to track down his killers as violence erupted in Dhaka and other major cities afresh over the attack and subsequent death.

Faisal Karim Masud's parents, wife and a female friend of the prime suspect have been arrested by police, but said they were unsure about his current whereabouts.

After Monday’s clandestine attack on Shikder in Khulna city’s Majid Sarani area, police said they were yet at dark about the attack perpetrators or motive but launched an “immediate manhunt” for their arrest.

Local police station chief Animesh Mondal, however, informed reporters that Khulna Medical College Hospital (KMCH) authorities now shifted Shikder to its City Imaging Centre to pinpoint the state of his injury.