Syria accused Israel of striking a disused military air base in the country’s northwest on Aug. 18, with a Syria war monitor saying the attack came after a visit to the site by a Turkish delegation.
Israel has been carrying out incursions into Syrian territory since the December 2024 overthrow of longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad, including sending troops into a U.N.-patrolled buffer zone that separated
Israeli and Syrian forces in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights since 1974.
It has also hit key military sites including several airfields, according to a Syria war monitor.
“Israeli occupation aircraft early this morning targeted the runway... with eight strikes,” Syrian state television quoted an unidentified military source as saying.
It added that “the attack resulted in material damage to the airport’s infrastructure, without causing casualties.”
Syria “condemns in the strongest terms the Israeli airstrikes targeting” the Abu Duhur military air base in Idlib province “and considers them an unjustified act of aggression,” A Foreign Ministry statement said.
The facility has been out of service since 2012 and is currently protected by Syrian Defense Ministry forces, a security source told AFP.
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor, the strikes came after “a visit by a Turkish military delegation to the airfield in recent days as part of efforts to reactivate it”.
Türkiye is a key ally of the new authorities.
Israel has launched hundreds of strikes on Syria since the fall of Assad and Israeli officials have said they intend to keep forces in a “security zone” in southern Syria, where they seek a broader demilitarized zone.
Damascus has repeatedly condemned incursions in the country’s south.
During a joint press conference with his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron in Damascus last month, Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa called for an “active French role” to halt Israeli escalations in his country.
But last week Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said that his country planned to keep troops in Syria.
Israel captured most of the Golan from Syria in the 1967 Arab-Israeli War and later annexed the areas under its control, in a move not recognized by most of the international community.
Despite tensions between the neighbors, Israel and Syria’s new authorities have held several rounds of direct talks and have agreed to establish an intelligence-sharing mechanism.
