Israel and Turkey escalate Syria tensions as power vacuum deepens

On August 18, Israeli warplanes struck the Abu al-Duhur airbase in northern Syria. Israel's stated reason was straightforward: the attack was meant to prevent Turkish forces from using the facility to help rebuild Syria's military. The problem was that US intelligence found no evidence the plan existed. Turkey and Syria both denied it. The strike, in other words, was justified against a threat that apparently was not there.

What followed was a cascade of insults between two countries that, until recently, had managed their rivalry with relative restraint. Benjamin Netanyahu's office called Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan an "antisemitic tyrant." Erdoğan responded by labeling Israel a "terror state." Turkish warships, according to Israeli media reports, approached Israeli vessels in the Mediterranean and forced them to alter course. Both governments insisted they did not want war. Yet the language and the military movements told a different story.

The roots of this confrontation run back to Syria's political collapse in late 2024, when a rebel army led by Ahmed al-Sharaa toppled Bashar al-Assad's regime and left a power vacuum that both Turkey and Israel moved to fill—but in opposite ways. Turkey was invited by Syria's new government to help train and equip its army. Israel was not. Turkey stationed roughly 20,000 troops inside Syria with Damascus's permission. Israel occupied southern Syria, including Mount Hermon, without it. This distinction, which might seem technical, carries enormous weight under international law and explains much of what is happening now.

Turkey's interest in Syria is partly about military partnership and partly about something larger. By becoming the main backer of al-Sharaa's government and maintaining a significant military presence, Turkey positions itself as the dominant external power in Syrian affairs. Some analysts believe Turkey's deeper aim is to expand its foothold into central Syria as a counterweight to Israel. The relationship between Turkey and Israel had already begun to fray in 2023 over Israel's war in Gaza. Erdoğan called the campaign genocide and joined South Africa's case against Israel at the International Court of Justice. Turkey suspended trade with Israel. The Syrian power vacuum simply gave both countries a new arena in which to compete.

Israel's strategy in Syria has been to keep the country weak and fragmented, unable to threaten Israel's northern border. In the hours after al-Assad fell, Israeli aircraft destroyed much of Syria's remaining military infrastructure. Israel then pushed past the Syrian border to occupy Mount Hermon and declared southern Syria off-limits to Syrian armed forces. The deeper concern driving Israeli actions is that a larger Turkish military presence would constrain Israel's freedom to operate in Syrian airspace—a freedom Israel has exercised repeatedly and considers essential to its security.

The legal framework here is clear, even if enforcement is not. Article 2 of the UN Charter prohibits the use of force against a state's territorial integrity. Israel's occupation of a "security zone" in southern Syria violates this principle. Israel has done similar things before. It captured the Golan Heights in the 1967 Six-Day War and annexed them in 1981; the UN Security Council declared that annexation "null and void." Last week, Syria's UN ambassador, Ibrahim Olabi, told the Security Council that Israel's continued occupation of Mount Hermon was "a blatant defiance of international legitimacy." Syria also has the right under international law to raise an army and choose its own military partners. But the bodies that enforce these rules—particularly the UN Security Council—act only when major powers permit. Because the United States has veto power on the council and is a close ally of Israel, it provides diplomatic cover for Israeli actions.

This is partly why Syria is moving to strengthen ties with regional partners like Turkey, hoping to create pressure on Israel without triggering open conflict. Turkey, for its part, has signed a mutual-defense pact with Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, diversifying its alliances beyond the United States and NATO. Open war between Israel and Turkey remains unlikely for now, largely because the Trump administration, as a close ally to both, has incentive to prevent it. Tom Barrack, the US ambassador to Turkey and special envoy to Syria, has been conducting back-channel diplomacy. He has even criticized Israel's August airbase strike as an "unnecessary escalation." Yet the situation remains volatile. Israel claims the right to strike whatever it dislikes in Syria. Turkey has deployed thousands of troops there. The risk of miscalculation—of a confrontation that neither side intended—is real and growing. Beneath all this military posturing lies a question that neither Israel nor Turkey is answering: what do the Syrian people themselves want for their country's future?