For a decade, Turkey has maintained a military presence in northern Syria, with Ankara framing the occupation as necessary to protect its border from the Islamic State and Kurdish militants it considers linked to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). Israel’s strikes last week on a military airport in northwestern Syria, however, signaled that Jerusalem increasingly sees Turkey’s military presence not simply as a feature of the Syrian conflict, but as a potential threat to Israel itself.
In the early hours of August 18, Israel carried out a series of eight airstrikes on the runway of the Abu al-Duhur airbase in Idlib, causing damage but no casualties, according to Syria.
“Israel and Syria agreed to a status quo in security matters, which Syria was on the verge of breaching by permitting Turkish troops to deploy at an airbase near Aleppo,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said in an English-language statement explaining the strikes.
Damascus swiftly condemned the attack, calling it an “unjustified act of aggression.” Ankara did as well, while denying plans to deploy military assets there.
The fallout quickly reached Washington, where US envoy Tom Barrack said the strikes “constitute an unnecessary escalation that does not advance regional stability.”
