Netanyahu says Israel and Turkey cooperating after Istanbul attack leaves 3 Israelis dead; IS fingered as likely culprit
Israel was attempting to find out whether a terror attack in central Istanbul that killed three Israelis specifically targeted the country’s citizens, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Saturday night.
The suicide bombing on a main thoroughfare in central Istanbul was roundly condemned in Israel and abroad, and came as Turkey has suffered a wave of deadly bombings and amid an ever-present fear of Israelis being targeted abroad.
“We are of course trying to get intelligence on whether the terror attack was targeted against Israelis,” Netanyahu said at a press conference Saturday evening hours after the attack, which left at least five people dead and another 36 injured, including some 11 Israelis, according to Turkish officials.
Netanyahu confirmed two Israelis were killed and said there were fears a third Israeli had been killed as well. One was named as Simha Damri, 60, from Dimona.
Speaking at a situation room in the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem, Netanyahu said officials in Jerusalem and Turkey were in constant contact, though he had not spoken to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Israel and Turkey are in the midst of détente talks to repair once warm ties that have been frozen for the last several years. Netanyahu offered condolences over a terror attack in Ankara earlier this month, a noted departure from silence over past attacks.
Despite chilly relations, Turkey has remained a popular tourism destination for Israelis, and a group of 14 people from the Jewish state on a culinary tour were apparently standing near the bomber when he blew himself up.
Nobody has claimed responsibility for the attack, though Netanyahu said it looked like the Islamic State group was responsible. IS has been accused of several attacks in Turkey in recent months, including a suicide bombing near the Blue Mosque in January, in which 12 German tourists were killed.
Several media outlets named the alleged perpetrator of Saturday’s attack as Savas Yildiz, a 33-year-old Turkish radical.
IS was also blamed for an attack that left 103 people dead at a pro-Kurdish peace rally in Ankara in October.
Of the 36 injured, Health Minister Mehmet Muezzinoglu said 12 were foreigners. Six were Israelis, two were Irish and the four others from Germany, Iceland, Iran and Dubai, his office said.
CCTV footage circulated by Turkish media showed a man wearing a long coat presented as the bomber approaching a small group of people outside a local government building directly before the blast.
Istanbul governor Vasip Sahin said the government building appeared to be the intended target.
A Western diplomatic source said the attacker may also have had tourists in his sights.
Israel’s counter-terrorism bureau issued a travel warning Saturday calling on Israelis to avoid leisure trips to Turkey.
Netanyahu on Saturday evening hinted the travel warning may be escalated on Sunday to calling on Israelis to avoid trips to the country whether for business or pleasure.
Israelis abroad have been targeted before, specifically by the Hezbollah terror group. In 2012, a suicide bomber blew himself up in Burgas, Bulgaria next to a bus full of Israelis, killing five Israelis and a local driver.
Two Magen David Adom planes and an IDF plane were on the way to Istanbul to bring back the dead and wounded.
Foreign Ministry Director General Dore Gold, who led negotiations in Geneva meant to restore ties between Israel and Turkey, cut short a visit to the AIPAC conference in Washington and was making his way to Istanbul Saturday. When he lands, he will be the highest ranking official to visit the country in years.
Gold will visit Israelis hospitalized in the city and then meet with high-level Turkish officials, the Hurriyet Daily News quoted Turkish sources as saying.
The paper quoted Israeli Embassy sources as praising the ongoing collaboration with Turkish officials in the aftermath of the attack.
Former foreign minister and Yisrael Beytenu leader Avigdor Liberman, who has been critical of Netanyahu’s role as both prime and foreign ministers, said that the terror attack “shows how necessary the Foreign Ministry and its trained staff are. Whenever there is a problem, the Foreign Ministry is without substitute.”
Liberman said that “usually, in such cases there is full cooperation regardless of the diplomatic or political situation. Erdogan has every reason to cooperate.”
Opposition leader and head of the Zionist Union party Isaac Herzog wrote on Facebook that he was “praying for the healing of the wounded… and embracing the families in Israel who lost loved ones in the terrible terror attack in Istanbul; may their memory be blessed.”
President Reuven Rivlin said in a statement his heart “ached” for the victims of the blast.
“We send our condolences to the families in mourning, pray for the well-being of the injured and hope for their swift return to Israel,” he said. “May the hands of the search and rescue teams be strengthened, along with the representatives of the Foreign Ministry in Israel and in Turkey, in their efforts to bring relief and information to the worried families.”
As reported by The Times of Israel