ANKARA: Turkey’s public broadcaster TRT has removed scenes of Israeli violence against Palestinians from a television 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 program incited hatred against Israel, insisting the main theme was about love “and this will become more obvious in upcoming episodes.”

The series, “Separation: Palestine in Love and in War,” went on air on October 13, infuriating Israel, which said the program incited “hatred against Israel” and was “not worthy of being broadcast.”

The first episode portrayed Israeli forces shooting innocent Palestinian civilians, insulting and ridiculing them.

The series fueled already simmering tensions between the long-time regional allies over Turkey’s exclusion of Israel from joint military exercises the week before. – AFP