Istanbul airport terror attack kills 10, injures at least 40; no Israeli casualties reported
Published June 28, 2016
(JTA) — Israel’s Foreign Ministry is working to determine whether any Israeli citizens were injured in a suicide bombing in Turkey that killed 10 people and injured at least 40.
Two suicide bombers blew themselves up at Istanbul’s Ataturk Airport on Tuesday night. The airport is the third-busiest in Europe.
The airport terror attack takes place three months after a March bombing in a tourist section of Istanbul, which killed three Israelis and injured several others. Also in March, a suicide bombing at Brussels’ airport killed 32 people and injured more than 300 others.
It also comes the same week that Israel and Turkey signed a reconciliation deal, ending a six-year break in diplomatic relations.
According to the Times of Israel, all Israeli diplomats who were at the airport at the time of the Tuesday night attack are unharmed. Israeli diplomats said that no Israeli tourists were among the victims taken to the hospital. Even during the diplomatic chill, Israel was one of the airline’s busiest routes, with 695,000 Israelis flying roundtrip with the airline in 2014 and eight daily flights on the Tel Aviv-Istanbul route.
According to various media reports, the bombers opened fire at the entrance to the airport’s international terminal, then blew themselves up after police began returning fire.