Analysis: Syrian airbase attack is an Israeli message to Damascus, Ankara

Tuesday’s air strikes on an airbase in northwest Syria have been blamed on Israel, and, according to analysts, they are a message not just to the government in Damascus, but also to its ally, Turkiye.

While Israel has yet to officially claim the attacks, Syria, the United States and Jordan have all said the attack on the Abu al-Duhur airbase in Idlib was the latest Israeli strike on its neighbour.

“Bombing an airbase means the Israeli army doesn’t want the new Syria to have any sort of air force in the coming years,” Kheder Khaddour, a nonresident scholar at the Malcolm H Kerr Carnegie Middle East Center, told Al Jazeera.

On December 8, 2024, Syrian rebel forces took Damascus, overthrowing the regime of President Bashar al-Assad. In the subsequent hours, Israel’s air force attacked Syrian military bases and infrastructure , in strikes that are believed to have knocked out much of the new Syrian government’s air defence.

In the hours after al-Assad’s fall, Israel also seized areas in the Syrian Golan Heights and illegally occupied the strategic point of Jabal al-Sheikh. Since then, Israel has set up checkpoints on Syrian territory, where it has harassed and at times kidnapped Syrian citizens.

In March 2025, Israel struck two Syrian airbases – T4 in Homs and the Palmyra airbase – that the Reuters news agency had reported had previously been visited by Turkish military delegations. And then, in July of the same year, Israel bombed Syria’s Ministry of Defence in the heart of Damascus.

Israeli officials have repeatedly stated that they see Syria’s new government as a threat, even though it has grown closer to the West – including the US. Israel’s government under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has also repeatedly warned Syria not to move troops south of Damascus – closer to the Israeli border – despite the new administration stating on multiple occasions that it does not seek a confrontation with Israel.

“Syria has not been a threat to Israel, and there have been months of negotiations on a security deal between the two neighbours,” Asli Aydintasbas, an associate senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, told Al Jazeera. “Since the downfall of the al-Assad regime, Syrians have made it very clear that they are interested in peaceful relations with Israel, and that should matter.”