‘Don’t’: Netanyahu says he warned Turkey before Israel struck Syrian base
PM says message now conveyed ‘more clearly’ to Ankara; sources say Mossad chief discussed issue last week with Syrian FM; Ehud Barak calls escalation ‘reckless and stupid’
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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asserted on Wednesday that Israel had already warned Turkey against any military activity in Syria before Israel bombed an airbase that Ankara had been eyeing, while sources told Reuters that the Mossad chief discussed the issue last week with the Syrian foreign minister.
Speaking in a podcast interview a day after Israel struck a military airbase in northwest Syria, Netanyahu said that Israel will not tolerate a Turkish military buildup “that descends south because it threatens us.”
Warning Turkey against such military activity in Syria, Netanyahu simply said “Don’t,” in English.
“The message was conveyed but apparently they didn’t hear it, so we made sure they understood it more clearly,” he added.
Meanwhile, three people familiar with the matter told Reuters on Wednesday that Mossad chief Roman Gofman held a phone call last week with Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani in which they discussed Turkey’s military presence in Syria.
The call, which the sources said took place on August 14, marks one of the highest-level contacts yet between Israel and the new Syrian government since the fall of former dictator Bashar al-Assad in December 2024.
לא נסבול התבססות צבאית טורקית בסוריה שמאיימת על ישראל.
הבהרנו את המסר בצורה ברורה: Don’t.
כנראה שלא שמעו אותו מספיק טוב, אז דאגנו שיבינו אותו בצורה טובה יותר. pic.twitter.com/O3FtoByEnP
— Benjamin Netanyahu – בנימין נתניהו (@netanyahu) August 19, 2026
Both Turkey and Syria reacted angrily to the airstrike, which Damascus said caused material damage but no casualties. The strike was also condemned by US Ambassador Tom Barrack, who called it an “unnecessary escalation.”
Condemning the strike, Syria’s foreign ministry said that it “has exercised restraint and worked to consolidate stability and avoid escalation.”
Despite tensions between the neighbors — in particular over the presence of Israeli troops in a southern Syria buffer zone — Israel and Syria’s new authorities have held several rounds of direct talks and have agreed to establish an intelligence-sharing mechanism.
But Israel has repeatedly raised the alarm about an entrenched Turkish presence in Syria, and in a statement Tuesday, Netanyahu’s office asserted that Turkish troops were allowed to deploy at the airbase, breaching an agreed-upon “status quo.”
Israel “repeatedly warned Syria that such a deployment would pose a threat to Israel’s security,” the statement added, and “Syria chose to ignore these warnings.”
While Turkey accused Israel of making baseless allegations, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor said the strikes came after “a visit by a Turkish military delegation to the airfield in recent days,” while several Syrian officials also confirmed to The Associated Press that the Turkish visit had recently taken place.
Israel has launched hundreds of strikes on Syria since the December 2024 toppling of Assad by Islamist forces led by former jihadist Ahmed al-Sharaa, who relies on support from Turkey and has received enthusiastic backing from US President Donald Trump. But this strike goes much further into Syria than the so-called security zone in southern Israel.
Former prime minister Ehud Barak accused Netanyahu on Wednesday of being “reckless and stupid” in escalating tensions with Turkey, alleging that the prime minister was attempting to “stir public anxiety” ahead of the upcoming national election.
“Turkey is not Iran or Assad’s Syria,” wrote Barak in a series of posts on X. “There is no strategic problem with Turkey that cannot be resolved, mitigated, or postponed over the long term through discreet contacts coordinated with the United States and its influence in Turkey and Syria. Netanyahu has completely gone off the rails.”
Barak, a former IDF chief of staff who also served as defense minister from 2007-2013, wrote that Netanyahu is engaged in “survival maneuvers” in an attempt to secure his political future, and that any “handling of these issues would be better postponed until after the election.”
The Times of Israel Community.