Tel Aviv/Beirut, Aug 18. (dpa/GNA) – Israel has attacked a military airfield in north-western Syria, the Foreign Ministry in Damascus said on Tuesday, condemning the early morning strike as a violation of its sovereignty and a dangerous escalation. No damage or casualties were reported.
Israel declined to comment when asked, but US special envoy for Syria and US ambassador to Turkey, Tom Barrack, confirmed the strikes were carried out by Israel.
Syria’s Foreign Ministry said Israel had repeatedly struck targets in Syria since December 8, 2024, while the Syrian government had exercised restraint, sought to strengthen stability and tried to avoid further escalation.
The continued attacks showed that Israel wanted to push the region into a new phase of tension and instability, it said. Barrack criticized the “confirmed Israeli airstrikes” on the Abu al-Duhur military airfield in Syria as an unnecessary escalation.
The strikes did not contribute to stability in the region, Barrack wrote on X. The government of transitional President Ahmed al-Sharaa had neither “adopted a predatory posture nor maintained proxy forces,” he said, and had “repeatedly indicated a preference for de-escalation with Israel.”
The United States had in the past facilitated talks between the parties to the conflict and would continue to do so in order to advance diplomatic efforts, Barrack said.
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based monitoring group, the airfield had been out of service for years but was currently being restored with Turkish support.
Turkish vehicles and equipment had been deployed there for some time, it said, and a Turkish military delegation visited the airfield in recent days to assess the progress.
GNA