Nadim Injaz, the man believed to have taken two people hostage in the Turkish embassy in Tel Aviv, is a Palestinian from Ramallah.

In August 2006, the then 28-year-old was arrested after an eight-hour standoff at the British Embassy in Tel Aviv, during which he wielded a plastic gun and threatened to shoot himself.

It transpired that he was seeking political asylum in Europe and had stormed the embassy because his demands for this had been ignored. This is also believed to be the motivation behind today’s attack.

Injaz claimed he had been an informant for Israel’s security services and that he feared that Palestinian militants would kill him for this.

He said at the time: "They will either take me out of here to Europe, or as a body."

Anti-terrorist police were at the scene, a normally quiet building near Israel’s Mediterranean coast, for hours. Nobody was injured in the incident.

Injaz said his brother had also collaborated with Israel in the 1990s, and as a result the family home had been attacked.

He had allegedly been sent to prison on more than one occasion for stealing and drug offences. And before he attacked the British embassy, he even told journalists he would do something desperate.