The body of an 18-year-old woman, Lian Zaher Nasser, from the Israeli Arab village of Tira, was discovered in the Reina nightclub in Istanbul, Turkey, her family reported. A girlfriend, Rua Mansour, was wounded and two other young women, also from Tira, have suffered severe anxiety attacks.
At least 39 people were killed in the attack Saturday night, including 16 foreign nationals, and 69 injured, when an assailant believed to have been dressed in a Santa Claus costume opened fire at the crowded Reina nightclub during New Year’s celebrations.
Rua Mansour’s father, Sofian Mansour, told Haaretz that his daughter, 18 and a half, on Friday traveled with her three girlfriends to Istanbul, on a one-week vacation they had been planning for some time. Mansour said at 9:30 PM Saturday he had spoken to his daughter over the phone and she told him they were waiting for a taxi to take them to the club. After the attack, “I tried to call her but there was no answer,” he related. “We knew that the attack took place in the same club and we were all anxious, we didn’t know what to do. Only at six in the morning Rua picked up the phone and said she had been shot in her lower body, underwent surgery and is now in stable condition in the hospital.”
The other two women, Ala Tarek Abed Alkhi, 27, a dentist, and Iya Akhsan Abed Alkhi, 26, were declared as suffering anxiety attacks and evacuated to a nearby police station. Ala told Haaretz in a phone conversation from the police station: “Shooting started from every direction and I saw dead people killed and wounded people dropping next to me. I hid in a corner and didn’t know what to do. Everybody was screaming and crying and the shooting didn’t stop. It felt like an eternity.”
The families and Israel’s foreign ministry are in touch with Turkish authorities and Israel’s Consul General in Istanbul Shai Cohen are working on bringing the women home.