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Edition No. 8· Today's briefing
IllustrationHindsite · Editorial Art

Istanbul's consulate attack exposes the fiction of Turkish-Israeli security trust

Both governments called it terrorism, yet nearly 200 arrests and conflicting casualty reports reveal how little Ankara and Jerusalem actually share intelligence.

### The attack neither side expected

On April 7th three gunmen opened fire outside Israel's consulate in Istanbul, wounding two Turkish police officers and leaving at least one attacker dead [1, 2, 5, 7, 13]. Both governments swiftly condemned the assault as terrorism [2, 5]. Yet that rare unity of language belied a deeper disarray. Turkey rounded up nearly 200 suspects in the days that followed [11, 22], a sweep so broad it suggested Ankara had been caught off-guard by an operation it now claimed to understand perfectly. Israel, meanwhile, offered no public gratitude for the arrests and issued no joint communiqué with Turkish counterparts. The diplomatic temperature remained as cool as it had been before the shots rang out.

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Istanbul's consulate attack exposes the fiction of Turkish-Israeli security trust — Hindsite