Israeli envoys in Ankara and Istanbul both reported in to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Thursday afternoon, confirming they were alive and well after a terror attack in the Turkish city of Izmir.
The third-largest city in the country, the port city on the Aegean Sea is home to more than two million people, including many Turkish Jews.
Two people were killed and five others were wounded in the attack, according to the state-run Anadolu news agency.
Police had blocked a vehicle at a checkpoint close to the courthouse in Izmir, leading two terrorists to open fire. During the shootout the attackers, both armed with Kalashnikov assault rifles and grenades, detonated a car bomb while trying to escape. Both were shot and killed by Turkish police, who detonated a second explosion while defusing a “suspicious vehicle” believed to be connected to the terrorists.
Izmir Governor Erol Ayyildiz blamed the attack on the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) terrorist organization. Weapons and ammunition found by security personnel after the attack made it clear a massacre was planned.
He told reporters there was a possibility that a third terrorist might still be at large, but added, “If there is one, he will be caught.”
The attack comes less than a week after a massacre by Islamic State (ISIS / Da’esh) terrorists at the upscale Reina club in Istanbul that left 39 people dead — including one young Israeli woman — and wounded 69 others, including three Israeli women. The attacker who carried out the shooting spree on the secular New Year’s Eve is still at large.