U.S. envoy warns Syria strike risked Israel-Türkiye clash

Israel struck the Abu al-Duhur military airbase in northwestern Syria’s Idlib province early Tuesday with eight airstrikes, an attack U.S. Ambassador to Türkiye Tom Barrack said carried real risk of triggering direct military confrontation between Israel, Türkiye and Syria.

“The Turkish forces did not know that Israeli aircraft were making their way to this specific Syrian base, nor did they know what their objective was, and therefore they might have decided to scramble fighter jets under the belief that they themselves were under attack,” Barrack told i24NEWS.

“Yesterday’s events were serious and concerning,” Barrack said. “Nevertheless, we are relieved that no lives were lost and that the situation did not escalate.”

Syrian state television reported the strikes hit the base’s runway and storage facilities, causing material damage but no casualties. The base sits about 70 kilometers (43 miles) from the Turkish border and had been out of service as a dedicated military airfield since 2013. Since the fall of Bashar al-Assad in December 2024, Syria’s new government had been using it as a training center for its rebuilding armed forces.

The strike came shortly after a Turkish military delegation inspected the base as part of an effort to rehabilitate it, according to Syrian and Turkish reporting. Israel initially declined to comment, and Israeli military censors blocked reporting confirming the country’s involvement before Barrack named Israel publicly on X. Israel later acknowledged responsibility, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office saying Israel and Syria had “agreed to a status quo in security matters” that Damascus was “on the verge of breaching” by allowing Turkish forces to deploy at the base.

Türkiye’s Foreign Ministry condemned the strikes as a violation of Syria’s territorial integrity, and Syria’s Foreign Ministry called them “unjustified aggression.” Jordan also condemned the attack. The strike was the first Israeli attack on Syrian government military assets since March, according to i24NEWS.

Israel has struck Syrian sites near planned Turkish military inspections before. In March 2025, Israeli aircraft hit Syria’s T4 and Palmyra airbases hours before a Turkish delegation was due to arrive at those sites, a strike Israel publicly acknowledged at the time. Israel later struck T4 again in early April 2025. Those earlier strikes were driven by Israeli concern that Türkiye could deploy air defense systems and drones at T4, which would have expanded Ankara’s control over Syrian airspace and constrained Israeli operations there. The dispute over T4 led Israel and Türkiye to establish a military communication channel in 2025 aimed at preventing miscalculation.