An Israeli air strike on a Syrian air base led to public friction with the United States, with U.S. Special Envoy Tom Barrack calling it an “unnecessary escalation.”
Israel and the Trump administration have publicly diverged on the issue of Syria post-Assad, but the issue had faded into an uneasy peace after direct military clashes last year. On Tuesday, Israel launched a series of surprise air strikes against Syria’s Abu al Duhur Airbase in Idlib province, hitting it eight times in attacks targeting the runway and storage facilities, according to the Syrian state-run Ekhbariya. No casualties were reported.
While the Israeli military has remained mum on the raid, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office effectively confirmed it in a statement, accusing Syria of breaking their security understanding by allowing Turkish troops to deploy at the airbase.
“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,” the statement read. “Israel repeatedly warned Syria that such a deployment would pose a threat to Israel’s security. Syria chose to ignore these warnings.”
It concluded that any threats to its security won’t be tolerated, but that it would “welcome” a return to the status quo.
As with previous clashes over Syria, Washington ultimately sided with Damascus, criticizing Israel through Barrack.
“We are deeply concerned that the confirmed Israeli airstrikes on Abu al-Duhur Airbase constitute an unnecessary escalation that does not advance regional stability,” the special envoy said in a post on X.
“The Al-Sharra government has neither adopted a predatory posture nor maintained proxy forces,” Barrack said. “It has, in fact, repeatedly indicated a preference for de-escalation with Israel. The United States has in the past, and will continue in the future, to host discussions to encourage diplomatic cadence over kinetic frustration for both nations.”
His language was nearly identical to that used by the Syrian Foreign Ministry, which condemned the attack as “a dangerous escalation that threatens security and stability in the region,” and “unjustified aggression and a flagrant violation of Syria’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.”
Israel didn’t publicly respond to Barrack’s statement, but a senior Israeli official speaking with Fox News said that Jerusalem had shared “highly classified” intelligence in advance about the base.
“Highly sensitive intelligence was shared with the United States in advance, at the most senior levels of the various agencies and bodies,” the official said. “Al-Sharaa understands that he cannot operate like the previous Syrian regime, which maintained proxy forces. It’s possible that he didn’t understand what was going on, or didn’t know.”
The true target of the strike was Turkey, which has grown increasingly hostile toward Israel since the war in Gaza, and over its differing approach to Syria. Turkey is one of, if not the closest, ally of Sharaa, having saved his forces from destruction in 2020 and granted him key international legitimacy.
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The increasingly cozy relationship between Damascus and Ankara has sparked Israeli fears that Turkey could be rapidly building up Sharaa’s forces to possibly threaten Israel in the near future. Syrian sources cited by Israel Hayom said the Tuesday strike came just one day after a Turkish delegation visited the base, looking to turn it into a joint base for Syrian and Turkish forces.
By Israel’s calculation, Turkey occupied 5% of Syrian territory, though essentially with Damascus’s blessing and cooperation.