A Reuters news agency video showed a police officer pulling out a gun and taking cover as gunshots resounded. One person was seen covered in blood.
According to Al Jazeera, three people were involved in the gunfire but have been “eliminated” by Turkish police.
The area where the consulate building is located, meanwhile, is densely populated and houses many businesses, including international ones, with “thousands” of people working nearby.
The Israeli consulate is on the seventh floor of one tall building in the area.
There are no Israeli diplomats serving in the consulate building in Istanbul, and no Israeli diplomats in the Israeli embassy in the Turkish capital of Ankara, “which means the employees who are inside those diplomatic missions are mostly the locals who are working for the consulate or embassy”, Al Jazeera’s correspondent said.
There were no details yet on the identity or motives of the attackers.