An attacker armed with a knife tried to enter the Israeli Embassy in Turkey, on Wednesday, before being shot and wounded slightly by Turkish security officials.
The man was carrying a 30 centimeter (12-inch) -long knife and a bag and was captured by police after being shot in the leg.
The Ankara governor’s office identified the man as Osman Nuri Caliskan, a Turkish national born in 1975, and said that a preliminary investigation shows no indication of having ties to a terrorist group and appeared to be mentally unstable.
The Anadolu Agency, run by the state, said that police guarding the embassy shot Caliskan in the leg after he took out a knife wrapped inside a newspaper, started to shout, and ignored the security officers’ warnings to stop and drop the knife.
The man was treated at Ankara Numune Hospital, according to Anadolu.
Israeli Foreign Ministry Spokesman Emmanuel Nahshon told The Associated Press that all embassy staff were safe. “The attacker was wounded before he reached the embassy,” Nahshon said in a statement in Jerusalem, adding that the incident took place in the “outer perimeter” of the embassy.
Turkey’s NTV television said employees of the embassy took refuge in a shelter during the incident.
The attack came a month after police detained five people who tried to break into Israel’s consulate in Istanbul to protest Israeli airstrikes in the Gaza Strip.
A statement from the Israeli Embassy said the assailant acted alone and tried to stab a Turkish police officer. “One of the Turkish police officers situated in front of the Embassy responded immediately and shot the attacker in the foot in order to neutralize him,” the embassy said. “The police officer’s action brought the incident to an end.”
Turkey faces multiple security threats, including from Islamic State militants, who have been blamed for bombings in Istanbul and elsewhere, and from Kurdish militants, after the resurgence of a three-decade rebellion in the mainly Kurdish southeast last year.
