Israel conducts fresh strike in Syria after US criticism

Israel carried out a fresh strike in Syria on Saturday and lambasted US envoy Tom Barrack for criticising an earlier attack on an air base in the northwest, which Israel has accused Turkey of seeking to use.

US envoy for Syria Tom Barrack on Tuesday slammed Israel’s attack on the disused military air base that day as an “unnecessary escalation that does not advance regional stability”.

On Friday, in an interview with influencer Mario Nawfal, Barrack said the strike may have been intended to provoke a conflict with Turkey, prompting Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz to hit back on Saturday, calling the remarks “full of inaccuracies”.

Since the December 2024 overthrow of longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad, Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes in Syria and has sent troops into a UN-patrolled buffer zone that for decades had separated Israeli and Syrian forces in the Golan Heights.

Katz wrote on X on Saturday that Israel had passed on “intelligence information to the authorised parties in the United States” before the strike on Tuesday.

He added that Barrack’s comments were “full of inaccuracies and positions that contradict the stance of US President (Donald) Trump himself regarding the Golan Heights”, after Barrack called the territory “occupied”.

Israel captured most of the Golan Heights from Syria in the 1967 Arab-Israeli War and later annexed the areas under its control, in a move only recognised by the United States and, this month, also Colombia.

‘Flagrant violation’

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, commenting on the Tuesday strike, said Turkey, an ally of the new authorities in Damascus, had been looking to establish a military presence on the air base.

Ankara has denied any visit to the site.

Netanyahu and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan have traded barbs since the incident, and Ankara announced it was seeking an Interpol red notice for Netanyahu, accusing him of “genocide” linked to the interception of a Gaza-bound aid flotilla.

Netanyahu’s office called Erdogan an “antisemitic dictator” while Erdogan’s office called the remarks “outrageous ravings” and accused Netanyahu’s government of “seeking to evade accountability”.

Also on Saturday, Syrian state television said a man was wounded when an “Israeli occupation drone” targeted a vehicle in the village of Beit Jinn, located southwest of Damascus near the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights, with the foreign ministry calling it a “flagrant violation” of its sovereignty.

Israel’s military acknowledged the strike, saying that its forces “fired in southern Syria toward a terrorist who advanced terror attacks in the final stages of preparation”, without identifying the target.

Israel has carried out repeated incursions into Syrian territory and has vowed to keep troops in a so-called “security zone” in southern Syria, where it seeks a broader demilitarised area.

This week Israeli army chief Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir told troops in southern Syria that “we are monitoring the changes on the Syrian front. We will not allow hostile forces to establish themselves on our borders.”