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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel will not accept a Turkish military presence extending further south in Syria, after the Israeli Air Force struck a Syrian airport where Israel says Türkiye was preparing to deploy forces.
"We will not tolerate a Turkish military presence establishing itself further south, because it threatens us. We conveyed that. Now, we saw that Türkiye intends to establish itself at an airport south of its line, near Aleppo, and we conveyed a message," Netanyahu said in a video posted to his account on X.
He said Israel had followed up with military action after its warning went unheeded, referring to the strike on the Abu Duhur air base. "The message was conveyed, but apparently it was not heard, so we made sure they understood it better," he added.
Netanyahu's comments followed remarks by Israel's military chief, Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir, who visited an Israeli-occupied security zone in southern Syria on Wednesday and told troops the military was tracking developments closely across the border.
"We are monitoring the changes on the Syrian front. We will not allow hostile forces to establish themselves on our borders, and we will know how to use our operational capabilities precisely where and when needed," Zamir said.
He added that Israel's military remained on alert across several active fronts. "We are still in a multi-front war, alert and operating in all arenas, escalation can develop in any one of them, and we must remain in constant readiness."
Israeli troops have held positions in the southern Syrian security zone since the collapse of the Assad government in December 2024. The area was previously a demilitarized buffer zone monitored by United Nations peacekeepers, separating Israeli and Syrian forces in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights since 1974.
The strike on Abu Duhur, located in Syria's northwestern Idlib province, came after Israel accused Damascus of violating an agreement by accepting Turkish troops at the base. A statement from Netanyahu's office said Syria had ignored repeated warnings.
"Israel repeatedly warned Syria that such a deployment would pose a threat to Israel's security. Syria chose to ignore these warnings," the statement said, though it stopped short of explicitly acknowledging Israeli responsibility for the strike.
Türkiye, which has had strained relations with Israel in recent years, rejected the allegations. US Ambassador to Türkiye Tom Barrack condemned the strike as an "unnecessary escalation."
Syria's foreign ministry issued a strong rebuke, calling the strikes "an unjustified act of aggression" and calling for action by the UN Security Council. The ministry said the attacks came despite Damascus having "exercised restraint and worked to consolidate stability and avoid escalation."
Türkiye's Communications Directorate rejected the claims from Netanyahu's office, saying they were intended to justify unlawful Israeli strikes on Syrian territory.
The directorate accused Netanyahu of pursuing "expansionist and destabilizing policies" in the region ahead of Israel's elections and called on him to abandon what it described as aggressive and coercive policies in favor of international law.
Ankara said it would continue working with Syria's government to promote peace and stability and would not allow the country's destabilization.
According to Reuters, which cited three people familiar with the matter, Mossad director Roman Gofman held a phone call with Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani last week in which the two discussed Türkiye's military presence in Syria.
The call reportedly took place on Aug. 14, days before Israel's airstrikes on the Syrian air base on Tuesday.
Reuters reported that the contact marks one of the highest-level exchanges yet between Israel and Syria's new government since the fall of former President Bashar al-Assad in December 2024.
The Israeli prime minister's office, which handles inquiries related to Mossad, did not immediately respond to a request for comment, nor did a spokesperson for Shaibani, according to Reuters.
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