3 Palestinians, one of them a child, among dead in Istanbul attack
Three-year-old dies a day after his mother, raising death toll in airport bombing to 43
Add ToI as a Preferred Source on GoogleDov Lieber is a former Times of Israel Arab affairs correspondent.
A Palestinian child on Thursday succumbed to wounds he sustained during a terror attack Tuesday in a Turkish airport, bringing the total number of dead to 43. More than 230 people were hurt in the attack.
The official PA news agency Wafa received confirmation of three-year-old Rayyan Sharim’s death from the Palestinian ambassador to Turkey, Faed Mustafa.
According the report, the child’s mother, Sundus Basha, died a day earlier. The two were from the northern West Bank district of Qalqiliya.
Nisreen Hammad, 28, from the Jenin town of Arraba in the northern West Bank, was the first Palestinian reported killed in the attack. Her 34-year-old husband and three-year-old daughter were injured. Hammad’s family was reportedly living and working in Saudi Arabia and had just arrived in Istanbul for a three-day vacation.
The Palestinian ambassador said Wednesday that at least seven Palestinians were wounded.
The Turkish government would cover the medical expenses for all the Palestinian victims, the ambassador added, according to the Ma’an News Agency.
The attack Tuesday night struck at the international terminal at Ataturk, one of the world’s largest air travel hubs, and many of those killed were identified as foreigners, including five Saudis, two Iraqis, one Tunisian, an Uzbek, a Chinese, an Iranian, a Ukrainian and a Jordanian national.
The three suicide bombers opened fire at passengers with automatic rifles before blowing themselves up.
No Israelis were injured in the attack, the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem said Wednesday morning.
Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said that early signs suggested the Islamic State terror group was behind the triple suicide bombing at the Istanbul airport.
Police on Thursday conducted simultaneous raids on 16 locations in Istanbul, rounding up 13 people suspected of involvement in the devastating attack.
A senior official said three foreigners were among the suspects detained, but did not provide any information on their nationalities. The official spoke on condition of anonymity in line with government regulations.
A senior Turkish official said the three suicide attackers were nationals of Russia, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan.
Agencies contributed to this report.
The Times of Israel Community.