Three killed in shooting near Israeli consulate in Istanbul, Turkey 

Three people have been killed and two police officers injured in a gunfire incident ⁠near the building housing the Israeli consulate in the Turkish city of Istanbul, according to Turkiye’s media reports.

The Reuters news agency video showed a police officer pulling out a gun and taking cover as gunshots resounded. One person ⁠was seen covered in ⁠blood.

According to Al Jazeera’s Sinem Koseoglu, three people were involved in the gunfire but have been “eliminated” by Turkish police. 

The area where the consulate building is located, meanwhile, is densely populated and houses many businesses, including international ones, with “thousands” of people working nearby, said Koseoglu.

The Israeli consulate is on the seventh floor of one tall building in the area, she added.

“The eyewitness that I spoke to … he was just smoking with his colleague, and three people came in a car, tried to open fire, and then the security fired them back,” said Koseoglu, reporting from Istanbul.

No Israeli diplomats are serving in the consulate building in Istanbul, and no Israeli diplomats are in the Israeli embassy in the Turkish capital of Ankara, “which means the employees who are inside those diplomatic missions are mostly the locals who are working for the consulate or embassy”, Koseoglu added.

There were no details yet on the identity or motives of the attackers.