ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq – US Special Envoy for Syria Tom Barrack on Tuesday said “confirmed” Israeli airstrikes on a Syrian airbase in Idlib province constitute “an unnecessary escalation” that does not advance regional stability.

Syrian state television reported earlier on Tuesday that Israel conducted eight airstrikes against Abu al-Duhur military airbase in the northwestern Idlib province, causing material damage but no injuries.

Barrack in a post on X expressed deep concern about “the confirmed Israeli airstrikes,” calling it “an unnecessary escalation that does not advance regional stability.”

“The [Syrian] government has neither adopted a predatory posture nor maintained proxy forces. It has, in fact, repeatedly indicated a preference for de-escalation with Israel,” the American diplomat added.

In January, high-level Syrian and Israeli delegations held a US-mediated meeting to resume negotiations over a security arrangement.

In his Tuesday post, Barrack said Washington “has in the past, and will continue in the future, to host discussions to encourage diplomatic cadence over kinetic frustration for both nations,” calling for “restraint and engagement” over military action.

Syria’s Foreign Ministry condemned the Israeli airstrikes “in the strongest terms,” calling the attack “an unjustified act of aggression, a flagrant violation of Syria's sovereignty and territorial integrity.” 

The ministry said Damascus holds Israel “responsible for this escalation,” and called on the international community and the United Nations Security Council to condemn the attack and “take a firm position against Israel's repeated violations of Syrian sovereignty.”

At the time of writing this article, Israel has not commented on the incident. 

After the new authorities in Damascus toppled Bashar al-Assad in December 2024, Israel’s Defense Minister Israel Katz ordered the Israeli forces to complete the takeover of the 1974 buffer zone in the Golan Heights, separating the two states, claiming that the 1974 Disengagement Agreement was void until order was restored in Syria.

In addition to the Golan Heights, Israel has launched repeated incursions into southwest Syria’s Quneitra countryside, conducting arrest sprees, raids, and setting up checkpoints.

During a presser in Damascus in late July, UN chief Antonio Guterres called Israel’s incursions into Syria “intolerable” and urged the international community and the Security Council to take more decisive action against “the violations.”