Knife-Wielding Man Detained After Break-in at Turkish Embassy in Tel Aviv
A man who entered the Turkish Embassy in Tel Aviv, tried to take a hostage and demanded asylum was detained by Israeli authorities and taken to a hospital.
The man was removed by a policeman and a medic late yesterday and put into an ambulance, Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said by telephone.
The Turkish Foreign Ministry said in an e-mailed statement that the man claimed to be a Palestinian, requested asylum and was armed with a knife, a toy gun and a container of gasoline. He broke a window to get into the embassy, the statement said.
“He started to shout, saying he wanted to seek asylum and tried to take over the deputy consul,” Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman Selcuk Unal said by phone in Ankara. “Our security officers apprehended him.” All embassy staff were “safe and accounted for,” he said.
Israel’s ties with Turkey soured following a May 31 Israeli naval commando raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla left nine pro-Palestinian Turkish activists dead. The incident led Turkey, once considered Israel’s strongest ally in the region, to recall its ambassador and scale back military cooperation.
To contact the reporter on this story: Calev Ben-David in Jerusalem at cbendavid@bloomberg.net
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