Jerusalem–A naked man was shot and killed at the Turkish embassy in Tel Aviv on Tuesday, police said, with reports that hostages had been taken being downplayed by Turkish sources.
"An individual who took off his clothes for mysterious reasons in a street near the Turkish embassy in Tel Aviv has been shot and killed by a man who then fled," police spokesman Alex Keglesky said.
Keglesky ruled out, for the time, that the shooting was an attack against the Turkish embassy.
But the popular Ynet news website reported that police were saying "another incident may still be ongoing within embassy walls."
Ynet said SWAT teams and negotiators had rushed to the scene.
Reports said police forces sealed off the area and were holding up traffic on HaYarkon Street, where the embassy is located.
Conflicting reports about what happened filled the media after shots were heard in the vicinity of the embassy, with one suggesting a hostage-taking inside the diplomatic mission.
Public radio quoted witnesses as saying "a man, apparently a mentally disturbed Arab Israeli demanded to be allowed into the Turkish embassy and committed an indecent act or some sort of provocation."
The same source said "a shot fired from the second floor of the embassy rang out, and the man was only wounded in the leg."
The Israeli foreign ministry was trying to clarify the situation, public radio said, adding that medics and Israeli police were deployed outside the embassy but did not have the authority to enter the premises because it is technically Turkish territory.
Turkish foreign ministry officials contacted by AFP said they did not yet have information on what exactly happened.
Anatolia news agency reported from Tel Aviv, quoting embassy sources, that a Palestinian who came to the embassy attempted to take an embassy employee hostage and was "rendered ineffective" by security.
The intentions of the Palestinian were unknown, it said.
