ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq - Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said Thursday that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is dragging Turkey into “dangerous adventures” in Syria, warning him against testing “Israel’s resolve to defend itself,” days after an Israeli airstrike on a Syrian airbase reportedly intended to host Turkish forces. 

In an X post, the minister asserted that the Turkish president “is dragging Turkey into dangerous adventures in Syria,” noting “Israel will not allow any actor to threaten its security.”

“Erdogan would do better to continue his unrealistic and fanciful rhetoric against Israel in the Turkish Grand National Assembly than to attempt to test Israel's resolve to defend itself,” Katz added.

The warning comes amid heightened tensions between the two countries, after the Israeli military conducted eight airstrikes against Abu al-Duhur military airbase in the northwestern Idlib province on Tuesday, causing material damage but no injuries.

Israel later claimed the attack was prompted by Ankara’s plans to deploy Turkish forces at the airport.

The Turkish presidency slammed Israel’s claims as “untenable allegations” in a social media post, saying they are intended to “legitimize Israel’s unlawful airstrikes targeting Syria’s sovereignty,” further asserting that the attacks are an extension of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s “expansionist and destabilizing policies in the region ahead of the elections in Israel.”

The Israeli military Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir toured southern Syria early Wednesday, saying Israel will not allow “hostile forces” to establish positions near its borders.

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

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