![\"TOPSHOT](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/afp_69d4e53a3508-1775559994.jpg\")
Police officials gather outside The Israeli Consulate in Istanbul following a shootout between gunmen and police [AFP]<\/p>\nThree people have been killed and two police officers injured in a gunfire incident \u2060near the building housing the Israeli consulate in the Turkish city of Istanbul, according to Turkiye\u2019s media reports.<\/p>\n
Three people were involved in the gunfire on Tuesday but have been \u201celiminated\u201d by Turkish police, said Al Jazeera\u2019s Sinem Koseoglu.<\/p>\n
The Reuters news agency video showed a police officer pulling out a gun and taking cover as gunshots resounded. One person \u2060was seen covered in \u2060blood.<\/p>\n
The area where the consulate building is located, meanwhile, is densely populated and houses many businesses, including international ones, with \u201cthousands\u201d of people working nearby, said Koseoglu.<\/p>\n
The Israeli consulate is on the seventh floor of one tall building in the area, she added, which is in the Yapi Kredi Plaza on Buyukdere Street in Istanbul\u2019s Besiktas district.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe eyewitness that I spoke to \u2026 he was just smoking with his colleague, and three people came in a car, tried to open a gunfire, and then the security fired them back,\u201d said Koseoglu, reporting from Istanbul.<\/p>\n
There are no Israeli diplomats serving in the consulate building in Istanbul, and no Israeli diplomats in the Israeli embassy in the Turkish capital of Ankara, \u201cwhich means the employees who are inside those diplomatic missions are mostly the locals who are working for the consulate or embassy\u201d, Koseoglu added.<\/p>\n
Attackers identified<\/p>\n
According to Turkish Interior Minister Mustafa Ciftci, the attacker have been identified.<\/p>\n
He said that they arrived from Izmit, a city about 100km (62 miles) east of Istanbul, in a rental car, noting that \u201cone had links to a group that exploits religion\u201d, while another, one of two brothers among the attackers had a prior drug-related record.<\/p>\n
Istanbul Governor Davut Gul described the incident as a \u201cprovocative act\u201d.<\/p>\n
Justice Minister Akin Gurlek said an investigation has been launched into the incident.<\/p>\n
Police officials gather outside The Israeli Consulate in Istanbul following a shootout between gunmen and police [AFP]<\/p>\n
Tuesday\u2019s incident is \u201csignificant\u201d due to the ongoing US-Israeli war on Iran, said Mehmet Celik, the editorial coordinator at the Daily Sabah newspaper, a conflict which has embroiled much of the region.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a very sensitive matter, given the situation in the region and, of course, the rising sentiment against Israel, be it through the Iran war, be it through the Gaza situation, or Lebanon or elsewhere in the region,\u201d Celik told Al Jazeera, speaking from Istanbul.<\/p>\n
The attackers\u2019 motive<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the motivation behind the attack could be to \u201cdamage Turkiye\u2019s prestige\u201d, which has been seen as a \u201csafe and stable place in the region\u201d amid the war, Celik said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen an attack like this happens, the first thing that comes to my mind is \u2026 who does this attack benefit? And it is definitely not, of course, Turkiye,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
A second motive for the attackers could be to drag Turkiye into the ongoing regional conflict, and a third motive could be to damage Istanbul\u2019s reputation as a diplomatic mediator city, given that many mediation efforts have taken place there, the journalist added.<\/p>\n
Still, Celik argued that Tuesday\u2019s attack should be seen as separate from Turkiye\u2019s past history, as it is currently going through a \u201cterror-free\u201d period, an attempt to \u201cminimise the effect of terrorism within Turkiye as well as in the wider region\u201d, he said, referring to the Kurdistan Workers\u2019 Party (PKK) recent disarmament<\/a> and changes in neighbouring Syria.<\/p>\n![\"TOPSHOT](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/afp_69d4e55f4998-1775560031.jpg\")
A police official stands alert near the Israeli consulate in Istanbul following a shootout between gunmen and police [AFP]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Three people have been killed and two police officers injured in a gunfire incident \u2060near the building housing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":517734,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,9084,632,50,51,47,52,48,1644],"class_list":{"0":"post-517733","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-israel","10":"tag-middle-east","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-top-news","13":"tag-top-stories","14":"tag-topnews","15":"tag-topstories","16":"tag-turkey"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517733","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=517733"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517733\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/517734"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=517733"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=517733"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=517733"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}