Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asserted on Wednesday that Israel had already warned
...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire...
against any military activity in Syria before Israel bombed an airbase that Ankara had been eyeing, while sources told Rooters that the Mosssd
...sees all, knows all, gets 'em all in the end...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 Ottoman 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,
...back at the dirigible, the pilot and the copilot had both hit the silk.
Jack!Cynthia exclaimed.
Do you know how to drive one of these things?
Jack wiped some of the blood from his knuckles.
No,he said.
Do you?...
three people familiar with the matter told Rooters 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 Bashir
Pencilneckal-Assad
Trampler of Homs...
in December 2024.
Both Turkey and Syria reacted angrily to the
...
KABOOM!...
…Sultan Recep Tayip Erdogan the first, “the Much Beloved” is getting stroppy because his play to expand into Syria on his way to conquer the mistakenly and temporarily independent (or so he must believe, poor man) land of the Jews was spiked…
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.”
The former prime minister remembers a far different Turkey. Today’s Turkey eagerly hosts Hamas, which it aids and abets for its own, Byzantine purposes.
More from the Times of Israel:
Turkey’s presidency said on X, without explicitly referring to any potential deployment plans, “Turkey will resolutely continue to cooperate with the Syrian Government on a legitimate basis for the establishment of peace, stability, and prosperity in Syria, and will never allow the destabilization of Syria.”More from the Times of Israel:
Two officials — who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly — said the Turkish delegation had visited the airbase in the northwestern province of Idlib Monday to review rehabilitation work underway at the facility. It was the first confirmation of a Turkish presence at the Abu Duhur base.
IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir visited troops in the Israel-held buffer zone in southern Syria Wednesday morning, and said Israel “will not allow hostile forces to establish themselves along our borders.”
“We see what is happening and are monitoring the changes on the Syrian front. We must prepare for them accordingly,” he said, according to remarks provided by the IDF. “We will not allow hostile forces to establish themselves along our borders, and we will know how to use our power precisely where it is needed and when it is needed.”
The IDF chief added that the military “must prevent the development of terror threats, while at the same time preventing the emergence of a significant military threat along our borders.”
The Israeli strikes on Tuesday followed worsening security tensions between Israel and Turkey and increasingly sharp rhetoric between the two countries over Syria, where both countries’ militaries are active.
Turkey, which has NATO’s second-largest army and has emerged as one of Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa’s main allies, accuses Israel of trying to destabilize Syria and undermine its new administration, repeatedly calling for international pressure and measures on Israel to respect Syria’s territorial integrity.
Ankara has been training Syria’s army, helping it rebuild its state institutions and infrastructure, and providing military and diplomatic support.
Israel meanwhile has accused Turkey of trying to turn Syria into a Turkish protectorate and of taking advantage of the fall of the Assad regime for its own ends.