Israel attacks airbase in Syria’s Idlib as US, Turkiye slam ‘escalation’

Israel has bombed an airbase in Syria’s Idlib, according to Syrian media, with Turkiye denouncing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s “expansionist” policies and the United States criticising what it called an “unnecessary escalation”.

Syria’s state-run Ekhbariya television, citing a military source, said on Tuesday that Israel ⁠carried out eight air strikes on the runway and storage facilities at the Abu al-Duhur base near Aleppo in northwest Syria.

There were no casualties.

The attack appeared to be Israel’s first attack on Syrian government assets since March.

After a day of official silence, Netanyahu’s office said late in the evening that it was aiming to stop Turkish troops from deploying at the base. The statement said Israel and Syria had “agreed to a status quo in security matters” but that Damascus was “on the verge of breaching” the agreement by allowing Turkish troops to deploy at the airbase.

Israel had “repeatedly warned Syria” of the risk, the statement said, but “Syria chose to ignore these warnings.”

Turkiye dismissed the allegations as “frivolous”.

In a statement on X, the Turkish Presidential Communications Directorate said the claims “aim to legitimise Israel’s unlawful air strikes targeting the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Syria”.

It tied the accusations to Netanyahu’s intent to continue “expansionist and destabilising policies” in the region before general elections in Israel, adding that Turkiye would “steadfastly continue its cooperation with the Syrian government on legitimate grounds” and would “never allow Syria to be destabilised”.

Turkiye was the first Muslim-majority nation to recognise Israel and is a NATO ally of the US.

But Israel has tense relations with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has vociferously denounced Netanyahu’s government, especially over its genocidal war in Gaza.

‘Unnecessary escalation’

Meanwhile, the US envoy for Syria Tom Barrack said earlier on Tuesday it was confirmed that Israel carried out the strikes on the Abu al-Duhur airbase in Idlib province.

The attacks “constitute an unnecessary escalation that does not advance regional stability”, Barrack, a business friend of President Donald Trump who is also ambassador to Turkiye, wrote on X.

“We encourage all parties to prioritise logical discourse over further military incidents,” he said.

Israel has launched hundreds of attacks on Syria since the December 2024 toppling of longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad by forces led by Ahmed al-Sharaa, now the country’s interim leader.

It has also sent troops into a United Nations-patrolled buffer zone that had separated Israeli and Syrian forces in the Israeli-occupied Golan since 1974, and carries out regular incursions deeper inside Syrian territory.

Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shibani called for the attacks to stop, saying Israel should recalculate its position towards Syria because it was confronting not only Damascus, but also Syria’s allies.

“These attacks don’t have security justifications… We will continue in our diplomatic path to dissuade Israel from this policy and to force it to ⁠stop its attacks on Syria,” he said at a news conference with International Atomic Energy Agency chief Rafael Grossi in Damascus.

Jordan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates also condemned the air attacks.

“We consider these strikes an unjustified act of aggression, a flagrant violation of Syria’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, and a blatant breach of international law and the UN Charter,” the ministry said in a statement.

The base, ⁠about 70km (43 miles) east of the Turkish border, has been out of service as a dedicated military airfield since 2013 and changed hands several times during Syria’s 14-year civil war between forces loyal to al-Assad and opposition factions.

Al Jazeera’s Heidi Pett, reporting from Saraqeb, 30km (20 miles) northwest of Abu al-Duhur, noted that Israel has increased attacks on Syrian military sites since al-Assad fled the country.

“There is a continuing Israeli campaign to degrade Syrian military capabilities that began under the Assad regime, but it rapidly escalated immediately after its fall,” she said.

“Israel systematically bombed the Syrian air force basically out of existence, and in the last year and a half, there has been an effort to rebuild some of that air capacity,” she added.