By Mehmet Emin Caliskan, Bulent Usta and Murad Sezer
ISTANBUL, April 7 (Reuters) - One attacker was killed and two others were wounded in an extended gun battle with police outside the building housing the Israeli consulate in Istanbul on Tuesday, according to authorities and Reuters witnesses.
Police officers pulled out guns and took cover as shots rang out for at least 10 minutes near a permanent security checkpoint. One person was seen covered in blood amid the glass towers in the heart of the city's
main financial district.
Footage obtained by Reuters showed an apparent attacker, in a dark top and carrying a backpack, moving among parked white police and security buses and firing, with an automatic rifle and a handgun.
Two bodies lay on nearby streets and parking areas, near grassy areas.
The three attackers had links to an organisation that “exploits religion”, Interior Minister Mustafa Ciftci said, adding that two of them were brothers.
Two police officers were lightly wounded in the attack, Istanbul Governor Davut Gul told reporters at the scene.
He said there had been no Israeli diplomatic staff at the consulate for 2-1/2 years, since the Hamas-Israel war began in 2023, leading to a deep chill in Turkish-Israeli diplomatic ties.
The incident occurred next to a major motorway just after midday, immediately outside the tower where the Israeli consulate is located. The gunfire echoed inside nearby bank headquarters, where thousands of workers were breaking for lunch.
Turkey, a fierce critic of Israel's military operations in Gaza, had recalled its ambassador from Israel in November 2023 and diplomatic relations have been effectively frozen since then.
At the same time that year, Israeli diplomats left Turkey due to security concerns after pro-Palestinian protests erupted across the country and in front of the consulate. Since then, a heavily armed police presence has been maintained in the area near the consulate.
The Israeli foreign ministry confirmed there were no staff at the consulate at the time of the shootings.
(Reporting by Mehmet Emin Caliskan, Bulent Usta and Murad Sezer; Additional reporting by Ece Toksabay and Daren Butler; Writing by Jonathan Spicer; Editing by Kevin Liffey and Alison Williams)
