A man carrying a knife and a toy gun broke into the Turkish embassy in Israel yesterday and attempted to take a diplomat hostage before being overpowered by security guards, Turkey’s Foreign Ministry said.
The intruder, who identified himself as a Palestinian, climbed to the first storey of the mission in Tel Aviv, smashed a window and broke in, “carrying a knife, a jerry can and a gun which later turned out to be a toy,” the statement said.
He “began shouting about wanting asylum and attempted to take the deputy consul hostage before being overpowered by the embassy’s security staff,” it said, without specifying how the man was subdued.
“The person is being question by our side and an in-depth inquiry is being carried out into the incident,” it said.
No one from the embassy staff was hurt, the ministry added, making no mention of the condition of the intruder.Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor identified the attacker as Nadim Injaz, a West Bank Palestinian who tried to seek asylum at another embassy four years earlier. Channel 2 TV played a recording of a phone call it said came from the attacker.
“I have two hostages,” he said in Hebrew. “I will blow up the embassy.”
A lawyer told Israel Radio, however, that the hostages – the consul and his wife – had escaped.
In his call to Channel 2, Mr Injaz went on: “If they don’t let me leave this country now I will burn down the whole building. I will burn everything. I will burn the cars, the doors I will break down the doors. I will break everything.”
He said he was demanding asylum and protection from “these murderers the Zionists, the murdering Jews.” At the same time, he said that Palestinian leaders, including President Mahmoud Abbas, “should die”.
Israel’s relations with Turkey have been strained in the wake of the Israeli attack on a Turkish flotilla heading for Gaza on May 31, when nine pro-Palestinian activists were killed, and many Palestinians have expressed support for Turkey. Turkey withdrew its ambassador from Tel Aviv in the wake of the attack on the flotilla. Israel Radio reported from the scene that rescue workers with stretchers tried to enter the seaside embassy compound but left without bringing out any wounded.
The radio report said Turkish officials were not allowing Israeli police or rescue workers to enter the embassy.
The Israeli Maariv newspaper said the man called the paper, identifying himself as Mr Injaz, the Palestinian who sought asylum at the British embassy in Tel Aviv in 2006. He said he had a flammable liquid and threatened, “I will kill any Jew that enters”.
Israeli police said Mr Injaz is from the West Bank city of Ramallah and was recently released from prison after serving time for his previous embassy attack.
They said at that time that Mr Injaz was an informer and a criminal with a record of property and drug offences who had encountered financial and legal troubles.
He told an Israeli TV station in 2006 that he feared he would be killed by Palestinian militants if he returned to the West Bank.