Israel Warns Syria Will ‘Pay A Heavy Price’ If Hostile Forces Are Allowed To Enter Country

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz warned the new Syrian regime that it would “pay a heavy price” if it allowed forces hostile to the Jewish state to enter Syria.

“If you allow forces hostile to Israel to enter Syria and endanger Israel’s security interests, you will pay a heavy price,” Katz said following Israeli strikes on Syrian military infrastructure remaining from the Bashar Al-Assad regime. “Israel will not allow Syria to become a threat to its communities and security interests.” 

Katz, speaking to Syria’s interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa, said the strikes were a “warning for the future.”

“The IDF struck military capabilities that remained at the Syrian bases of Hama and T4, along with additional remaining military infrastructure sites in the area of Damascus in the past few hours,”  the IDF said in a Wednesday statement posted to X. “The IDF will continue to operate to remove any threat to Israeli civilians.”

The Hama airport was almost entirely destroyed, according to Syria’s Foreign Ministry.

Syria condemned the attacks as an “unjustified escalation,” reported BBC

Experts believe that Israel’s strikes were meant to convey a message to Turkey that Israel opposes it spreading its influence amid reports that Turkey was moving to put aircraft and air defenses at airbases in Syria.

In a press conference on Monday, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar accused Turkey of trying to make Syria into a Turkish “protectorate.”

“They play a negative role in Syria, they play a negative role in Lebanon … They have aspirations all over the region and other regions of the world,” Sa’ar said. “They are doing their utmost to have Syria as a Turkish protectorate. It’s clear that this is their intention.”

Sa’ar added that just as Israel opposed Iranian influence in Syria during the previous regime, it opposed Turkey filling the void.

“We don’t think it was good when Syria was an Iranian proxy, and we don’t think that Syria should be a Turkish protectorate,” he said.

Israel has had troops stationed in a buffer zone in recent months to protect any hostile actors in Syria from attacking the Jewish state.

Israel, which has a sizable Druze community with many members who serve in the Israeli Defense Forces, also vowed to protect the Syrian Druze from any harm and has shipped humanitarian aid to Druze villages.

Last month, a group of Israeli Christians gathered at Israel’s border with Syria in the Golan Heights to demand that the European Union, Israel, and the United States protect Christians in Syria.