Istanbul police have launched a "large-scale investigation" following a shooting that left one Palestinian dead and two others wounded while they were sitting in a car, according to officials and media reports on Monday.

The killer dropped a handgun fitted with a silencer at the scene, the Istanbul Governor’s Office said in a brief statement.

The Demirören News Agency reported that the man sitting in the driver's seat was killed and his friend seriously wounded in the shooting late Sunday. Another man, who the governor’s office described as the dead man’s bodyguard, was injured in the foot.

The killing was carried out by a masked assailant or assailants, the agency said. The victims were sitting on Dilaver Street in the Kağıthane district of north Istanbul when the attack happened. It described the seriously wounded victim as a businessman.

Photographs of the scene showed a semi-automatic handgun with a silencer attached to the barrel lying on the sidewalk next to a white saloon car parked between two other vehicles.

The white car’s rear passenger door nearest the sidewalk appeared to have been punctured by several bullets.