Dozens of Israelis Detained in Istanbul, Their Passports Seized

Some 40 Israelis on board a Turkish Airlines flight from Tel Aviv to Istanbul were separated from the rest of the passengers upon arrival in Turkey on Monday and were questioned at length by Turkish police, marking a highly unusual event against the backdrop of a deepening diplomatic crisis between Turkey and Israel, reports Haaretz.com, the online edition of Haaretz Newspaper in Israel.

 

Turkish police took the Israelis’ passports upon arrival and questioned each person individually in an investigations room. Only after prolonged questioning did the Israelis receive their passports back and were freed to go.

 

Foreign Ministry officials said in response that the event is highly unusual and serious, and said that many of the Israeli passengers called the Foreign Ministry and said they felt fear during the questioning. The Foreign Ministry turned to the Turkish Foreign Ministry and demanded an explanation, however the Turks said they were not familiar with the incident.

 

“At this time it looks like a local initiative of police in Istanbul, but we are still looking in to the event and mostly trying to understand what was the character of the investigation,” said a Foreign Ministry official.

 

The recent crisis in Israel-Turkey relations deepened after the UN-commissioned report on the 2010 Gaza flotilla raid was leaked to the New York Times, foiling a last-ditch effort to patch up relations between the two countries. Turkey then announced a series of measures against Israel, beginning with the expulsion of the Israeli ambassador and the downgrading of bilateral relations to the level of second secretary.