One strike, three powers: the new Israel–Türkiye tension in Syria

World IsraelSyriaturkeyusa One strike, three powers: the new Israel–Türkiye tension in Syria Turkeysyria Relevant News One strike, three powers: the new Israel–Türkiye tension in Syria 28 August 2026 Orange warning for storms issued as temperatures to plunge 10 degrees 28 August 2026 Municipalities say Cyprus is not ready for pay-as-you-throw 28 August 2026 Theodosis Pipis 28 August 2026 FacebookXWhatsAppEmailPrintViber Last week’s Israeli airstrike on Abu al-Duhur airbase in northwestern Syria, and the diplomatic fallout that followed, offers a glimpse into a potentially broader strategic confrontation between Israel and Türkiye over the future of Syria. Israel said it carried out the strike after receiving intelligence indicating Turkish military movements at the airbase. Yet US Ambassador to Türkiye and Special Envoy for Syria Tom Barrack said Washington had received the Israeli intelligence six days before the attack and, after conducting its own due diligence, found no basis for the claim. In an interview given to Mario Nawfal on 21 August, Barrack stated “We all did our due diligence. We went back to our respective intelligence agencies. The answer we got is, no, that’s not happening.” The apparent divergence between the Israeli and American assessments is significant in itself. It raises questions not only about the credibility of the intelligence behind the strike, but also about the increasingly difficult position Washington occupies between two important regional partners. The more important question is why Israel was willing to strike a site where it believed Turkish military activity was taking place despite the potential diplomatic consequences with Ankara and Washington. One explanation is that Israel increasingly views Türkiye’s expanding role in Syria as a strategic problem. As Ankara seeks greater influence over Syria’s political and security architecture, Israel faces the possibility of another powerful regional actor developing a long-term military presence in its immediate strategic environment. From Israel’s perspective, preventing the establishment of military infrastructure that could eventually threaten its interests may therefore take precedence over avoiding friction with Türkiye. The strike could instead represent a preventive calculation: that allowing Turkish military infrastructure to become entrenched in Syria would create a more difficult security problem in the future. Yet even if deterrence rather than provocation was the objective, the distinction may matter less from Türkiye’s perspective. Ankara is likely to view military action against a site associated with its interests as a challenge to its own freedom of action in Syria. This creates a potentially destabilising cycle. Israel may believe that military pressure is necessary to prevent Türkiye from becoming too deeply embedded in Syria, while Türkiye could interpret Israeli military action as evidence that a stronger presence is required to protect its interests. A measure intended to deter one actor can therefore create an incentive for that actor to become more assertive. The US is consequently placed in an increasingly difficult position. Washington has an interest in maintaining its strategic relationship with Israel, while Türkiye remains a critical NATO ally and an important actor in determining Syria’s future. The discrepancy between the Israeli assessment and the subsequent US assessment is particularly important in this context. Israel’s ongoing bombardment of Lebanon, its war with Iran, its expansion into the West Bank, and the genocide in Gaza are already testing its relationship with the United States. Further conflicts could push Washington toward a harsher response to Netanyahu’s actions. It also raises a broader question about Washington’s role in the region. The United States has increasingly found itself attempting to manage rather than resolve competing security priorities among its partners. The Abu al-Duhur incident illustrates how difficult that task becomes when Israel and Türkiye begin to perceive each other’s presence in Syria as a potential security threat. The episode also needs to be considered alongside Israel’s wider regional strategy. Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar has recently stressed that Israel “always prefers” diplomatic solutions. Yet Israel’s actions across the region suggest the contrary as the Netanyahu government continues to exert military pressure. That does not necessarily mean that Israel has abandoned diplomacy over Syria as US-mediated talks have taken place in Jordan. The more consequential question is whether Israel’s current approach is producing the conditions for diplomacy or progressively narrowing them. This question has become particularly relevant as the United States appears to have placed greater emphasis on economic pressure and sanctions rather than continued direct military escalation against Iran. If Washington becomes more reluctant to employ force against Tehran, Israel may have greater incentive to pursue its own security objectives in other theatres where it retains greater freedom of action, including Syria and Lebanon. The risk is that such a strategy could generate a widening number of confrontations without producing a corresponding increase in Israeli security. Each individual operation may be intended to eliminate a specific threat, but collectively they can alter the strategic calculations of other regional actors. Syria provides a particularly important example: efforts to prevent one actor from establishing itself militarily could encourage another to deepen its presence. This is ultimately why the Abu al-Duhur strike matters beyond the immediate dispute over the intelligence that preceded it. The incident may signal the emergence of a new fault line in Syria between Israel and Türkiye, two states with increasingly divergent visions of the country’s security order. It also demonstrates the limits of Washington’s ability to reconcile those interests. For Israel, the strategic dilemma is becoming clearer. Military action may provide a rapid way of preventing perceived threats from becoming entrenched, but repeated unilateral action risks creating new strategic problems with actors that Israel may ultimately need to deal with diplomatically. The key question, therefore, is not simply whether Israel was justified in striking Abu al-Duhur. It is whether confronting Türkiye now will deter Ankara from expanding its military role in Syria, or convince it that a stronger presence is necessary to protect its interests. How that question is answered could have consequences well beyond a single airstrike, shaping the emerging security architecture of post-Assad Syria and testing the ability of the United States to manage increasingly difficult relationships with both Israel and Türkiye. 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