Israel and Turkey are entering a new confrontation over Syria after Israeli airstrikes hit the Abu al-Duhur military airfield in Idlib overnight on August 17-18, hours after a Turkish military delegation had inspected the base to assess runway repairs, according to ACLED. The Israeli Air Force struck the runway and infrastructure eight times without reported casualties. Syria’s foreign ministry called the strikes a violation of its sovereignty, while ACLED’s Middle East research manager, Muaz Al Abdullah, said the operation likely aimed “to prevent Turkey from utilizing the airbase to anchor its influence.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said afterward that Israel had already warned Turkey against military activity in Syria: “The message was conveyed, but apparently they didn’t hear it, so we made sure they understood it more clearly,” he said, according to The Times of Israel. His office separately said Syria had been on the verge of breaching an agreed security status quo by allowing Turkish troops to deploy at the base, according to FDD’s Long War Journal. Reuters reported, citing sources familiar with the matter, that Mossad director Roman Gofman spoke with Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani days before the strike to relay Israeli concerns about Turkish military activity.
The dispute follows the August 7 signing of the Makkah Joint Defence Agreement between Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, under which an armed attack on one signatory would be treated as an attack on all three. The strike is not the first time Israel has targeted a Syrian base linked to Turkish ambitions: it struck the T4 airbase in Homs in April 2025 amid reports of Turkish interest in establishing a presence there, according to ACLED. The pattern illustrates Israel’s approach in post-Assad Syria: striking to prevent rival infrastructure before it becomes operational, rather than confronting a completed deployment.
