Turkey today rejected Israel’s accusations that Ankara is preparing to deploy troops to Syria, a day after bombings targeting an airbase in the country.

Israel accused Turkey yesterday of posing a “threat” to its security because it was preparing to send troops to the Abu Duhur airbase, without explicitly claiming responsibility for the strike, which targeted the facility being rebuilt in Idlib province in northwestern Syria.

The United States, however, attributed the strike to Israel and condemned the action by its otherwise closest ally in the region.

The attack marked one of the rare occasions on which Israel defied the United States, which is seeking to support Syria’s new government, led by a former jihadist who is an ally of Turkey.

“Israel had repeatedly warned Syria that such a deployment would pose a threat to Israel’s security. Syria chose to ignore these warnings,” the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.

Ankara denied having any plans to deploy troops to Syria.

“The unfounded accusations (…) by the Israeli prime minister’s office are intended to legitimize Israel’s illegal airstrikes, which undermine Syria’s national sovereignty and territorial integrity,” the Turkish government said, according to a statement cited by the state-run Anadolu news agency.

“Unnecessary escalation”

Turkey was the first predominantly Muslim country to recognize the state of Israel, and historically the two countries maintained an alliance, but bilateral relations have gone through numerous tensions during Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s time in power. Erdoğan, the leader of a political Islamist movement, has strongly condemned Israel, above all over its devastating war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

Damascus condemned the “unjustified attack” by its neighboring country “in the strongest possible terms.”

The U.S. ambassador to Turkey and White House special envoy for Syria, Tom Barrack, said that “we are deeply concerned” about the “confirmed Israeli airstrikes against the Abu Duhur base,” criticizing the “unnecessary escalation that does not advance regional stability.” Syrian state television reported that there had been “eight strikes” by the Israeli Air Force on the base, causing “material damage,” but made no mention of casualties.

The Israeli Air Force launched hundreds of strikes against Syria after the overthrow, in December 2024, of then-President Bashar al-Assad by an alliance of Islamist forces.

It also deployed troops in a UN-monitored buffer zone, where “observers” had been stationed, separating Israeli and Syrian forces on the Golan Heights, and says it has established a “security zone” from which it stresses that it will not withdraw.

Visit

The airbase, which had suffered extensive damage during the Syrian civil war, stopped operating in 2012. It is guarded by forces from Syria’s Defense Ministry, according to an Agence France-Presse source.

According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based non-governmental organization with a broad network of sources in the country, the Israeli bombings took place after “the visit, in recent days, of a Turkish military delegation to the airbase as part of ongoing efforts to bring it back into service.”

Syria’s de facto authorities have repeatedly condemned Israeli operations on Syrian territory and called for the withdrawal of Israeli troops deployed in the country.

Despite the tensions, Israel and Syria’s new authorities have held several rounds of direct talks and, among other things, agreed to establish an intelligence-sharing mechanism.

When they seized power in December 2024, the new Islamist authorities in Damascus took control of Abu Duhur airbase, which had been held by forces loyal to ousted President Bashar al-Assad since late 2018, after rebel and jihadist factions had seized large parts of Idlib province three years earlier.

The new de facto authorities have the support of the U.S.-led international coalition as part of the fight against the jihadist organization Islamic State (ISIS), remnants of which remain active in the country.

Damascus also announced yesterday that it had arrested a senior ISIS figure in the northern part of the country.