Israeli army vehicles move in the U.N.-patrolled buffer zone separating Israeli and Syrian forces on the Golan Heights near the Druze village of Majdal Shams in the Israel-annexed Golan Heights on Dec. 21, 2024. Jalaa Marey/AFP via Getty Images
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) launched a strike in southern Syria on Aug. 22, amid simmering tensions between the two countries.
“The IDF fired in southern Syria toward a terrorist who advanced terror attacks in final stages of preparation,” the IDF said. “The terrorist’s activity posed an immediate threat to IDF soldiers.”
The Syrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Israeli forces used a drone to target a civilian vehicle, which resulted in several civilian injuries.
“This attack constitutes a flagrant violation of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Syrian Arab Republic, a blatant breach of international law, and comes within the context of repeated Israeli attacks on Syrian territory,” the Syrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said.
Israeli warplanes previously struck the Abu al-Duhur Air Base, in Syria’s Idlib Province, on Aug. 18. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the strike was carried out after Syria’s transitional government ignored Israeli warnings against allowing Turkish troops at the base.
Turkey, which is an ally of the United States through NATO, condemned the Aug. 18 strike and denied that its troops were bound to deploy at the Syrian air base.
U.S. Ambassador to Turkey Tom Barrack, who is also the U.S. special envoy for Syria, also condemned the Israeli strike on the Syrian air base, saying that it represented an “unnecessary escalation that does not advance regional stability.”
Syria remains in a state of transition following years of civil war between supporters of former Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad and an assortment of different rebel factions.
Assad fled the country in December 2024, as a rebel army seized the capital city of Damascus. Leading that rebel offensive was Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which the U.S. government had designated as a foreign terrorist organization at the time.
HTS and its leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa, went on to take up key leadership positions in a post-Assad transitional government. The U.S. government has since rescinded the terrorism designation against HTS and engaged diplomatically with the transitional government.
As Assad fled in 2024, Israeli forces also seized control of a swathe of territory in southwest Syria and have maintained a force presence there since.
The U.S. government has taken steps to facilitate diplomacy between the Israeli government and the Syrian transitional government.
“The United States continues to believe that restraint and engagement offer the more constructive course. We encourage all parties to prioritize logical discourse over further military incidents,” Barrack said on Aug. 18.
