New Delhi, July 1 -- Turkey's president on Tuesday dismissed an Israeli proposal to designate violence against Armenians by the Ottoman Empire during World War I as genocide, and turned the accusation back at Israel by pointing at the deaths of Palestinians in Gaza.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was responding to a measure approved Sunday by Israel's Cabinet. The proposal still requires parliamentary approval and comes amid deteriorating ties between Israel and Turkey.

Turkey has fiercely lobbied to prevent countries from officially recognizing the mass deaths of Armenians around 1915 as genocide, even as Armenians have pushed for it.

Historians estimate that up to 1.5 million Armenians were killed by Ottoman Turks around the time of ...