Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said it had become clear to Turkey that it could not maintain a military base in Syria, indirectly acknowledging that the Israeli armed forces bombed the Abu Duhur air base on Tuesday, east of Idlib province and about 70 kilometers from the Syrian-Turkish border .
According to the Syrian state-run Ekhbariya network , citing a military source, eight airstrikes were carried out against the base’s runway and storage facilities. Material damage was caused, but no casualties were reported.
In a radio interview, Netanyahu said Israel would not tolerate a deployment of Turkish military forces to the south, as it would represent a “threat.” Noting that Israel had already sent a message against the Turkish presence at the airport, he said: “Obviously, they didn’t hear it, so we made sure they understood it clearly.”
At the same time, the chief of the Israeli National Defense General Staff, General Eyal Zamir , announced that the Israeli army will not allow “hostile forces to establish themselves” on the Syrian border.
The Israeli prime minister’s office, which claimed responsibility for the attack late Tuesday, said in a statement that Israel and Syria had agreed to a “security status quo” that Damascus was on the verge of violating by allowing Turkish troops to deploy to the base. It said “Israel had repeatedly warned Syria” that such a deployment would pose a threat to its security, but Damascus ignored the warnings.
The timing of the operation is particularly significant. The strikes came hours after a Turkish military delegation visited the base to inspect the rehabilitation work on the corridor. It was also the first Israeli attack on Syrian government forces since March , ending a months-long lull in attacks.
Turkey reacted immediately and strongly. The Turkish presidency’s Communications Directorate, according to the Anadolu Agency, described the claims by Netanyahu’s office as pretextual and designed to legitimize illegal strikes against Syria’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, calling on the international community to hold it accountable. A Turkish source told Axios that the country maintained no military presence at the base, accusing Israel of inventing pretexts to bomb neighboring countries.
Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shibani condemned the “Israeli aggression” from Damascus, calling it an unjustified provocation, a violation of Syrian sovereignty and a direct threat to regional and global stability. Condemning statements were also issued by, among others, Qatar, Egypt and Saudi Arabia .
The strongest reaction, however, came from Washington. The US ambassador to Turkey and the White House’s special envoy for Syria, Tom Barak , said in a post on X that the confirmed Israeli raids constitute “an unnecessary escalation that does not promote regional stability,” calling on all sides to prioritize dialogue over new military incidents. He noted that the government of interim President Ahmed al-Sharrah has not adopted an aggressive stance or maintained proxy forces, having repeatedly expressed a preference for de-escalation with Israel.
In an interview with the Jerusalem Post on Wednesday, the pro-Turkish US Ambassador Barak went even further, arguing that the attack posed a real risk of rapidly escalating into a direct military confrontation between Israel, Turkey and Syria. As he explained, Turkish forces were unaware that Israeli aircraft were heading towards the specific base and may have taken off their own fighters believing they were under attack. He characterized the events as serious and worrying, expressing relief that there were no casualties. The US, he said, is working to restore a reliable de-escalation mechanism between the three sides.
Abu Duhur base has not been in operation as a purely military airfield since 2013 and has changed hands several times during the Syrian civil war. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Turkey had taken over its rehabilitation , while foreign fighters who remained there were recently asked to leave.
This is not the first time that Israel has struck a facility that Ankara has expressed interest in. In April 2025 , Israeli aircraft struck the T4 base in Homs and the Hama airport, amid Turkish talks to install an air presence and air defense systems there. That incident eventually led to the creation of a communication channel between Israel and Turkey to avoid conflicts in Syrian airspace.
Since the overthrow of the Assad regime by an Islamist alliance in December 2024 , Israel has launched hundreds of airstrikes against targets in Syria, mainly targeting military assets of the old regime to prevent them from falling to the new authorities. In addition, it deployed troops in the UN-supervised buffer zone separating Israeli and Syrian forces in the Golan Heights, calling it a “security zone” from which it has no intention of withdrawing.
