DAMASCUS: The Zionist entity stepped up airstrikes on Syria overnight, declaring the attacks a warning to the new Islamist rulers in Damascus as it accused their ally Turkey on Thursday of trying to turn the country into a Turkish protectorate. The strikes, targeting air bases, a site near Damascus and the southwest, put renewed focus on Zionist claims about the Islamists who deposed Bashar Al-Assad in December, with Zionist officials viewing them as a rising threat at their border.

Also suspicious of Ankara’s sway over Damascus, the Zionist entity has been working to advance its goals in Syria since Assad was toppled, seizing ground in the southwest, declaring a willingness to protect the Druze minority, lobbying Washington for a weak state, and blowing up much of the Syrian military’s heavy weapons and equipment in the days after he fell.

The Zionist army said its forces operating in the southwest overnight killed several fighters who opened fire on them.

They were on a targeted mission at the time beyond the separation zone where they are deployed inside Syria, it said. Syria’s state news agency SANA said Zionist shelling had killed nine people in the area, during what it described as the deepest incursion yet by Zionist troops in the area.

Zionist Defiance Minister Israel Katz said that the airstrikes late on Wednesday evening were “a clear message and a warning for the future - we will not allow the security of (the Zionist entity) to be harmed”. Katz said in a statement that Zionist armed forces would remain in buffer zones within Syria and act against threats to its security, warning Syria’s government it would pay a heavy price if it allowed forces hostile to the Zionist entity to enter.

Reflecting Zionist concerns about Turkish influence in the new Syria, Foreign Minister Gideon Saar accused Ankara of playing a “negative role” there, in Lebanon and other regions. “They are doing their utmost to have Syria as a Turkish protectorate. It’s clear that is their intention,” he told a press conference in Paris.

The Syrian foreign ministry said the strikes resulted in the “near-total destruction” of a military airport in the central province of Hama and wounded dozens of civilians and soldiers. “This unjustified escalation is a deliberate attempt to destabilize Syria and exacerbate the suffering of its people,” it said in a statement on Telegram, calling on the international community to put pressure on the Zionist entity to “stop its aggression”.

Katz hit back with a warning to interim President Ahmed Al-Sharaa in which he pointedly referred to the president by the nom de guerre he used as an Islamist rebel commander. “I warn Syrian leader Jolani: If you allow hostile forces to enter Syria and threaten (Zionist) security interests, you will pay a heavy price,” he said. The Zionist entity bombed Syria frequently when the country was governed by Assad, targeting the foothold established by his ally Iran during the civil war.

The latest strikes were some of the most intensive Zionist attacks in Syria since Assad was toppled. The Syrian foreign ministry said the Zionist entity struck five separate areas within a 30-minute window, resulting in the near-complete destruction of the Hama air base and wounding dozens of civilians and soldiers.

The Zionist military said it had struck remaining military capabilities at air bases in Hama and Homs provinces, in addition to remaining military infrastructure in the Damascus area, where Syrian media and officials said the vicinity of a scientific research facility was hit. In Hama, a Syrian military source told Reuters a dozen strikes demolished the runways, tower, arms depots and hangars at the military airport. “(The Zionist entity) has completely destroyed Hama air base to ensure it is not used,” the source said.

The Zionist entity also said on Wednesday it targeted the T4 air base in Homs province, which it has repeatedly hit over the past week. A Syrian source told AFP that the T4 airbase was coveted by the new government’s main foreign backer, Turkey, for future use by its military.

In the incident in southwestern Syria, the Zionist military said its forces were operating in the Tasil area, “confiscating weapons and destroying terrorist infrastructure” when several militants fired on them. Residents of the Tasil area reached by phone said a group of armed locals were killed after confronting a Zionist army contingent that had arrived in the area to destroy a former Syrian army encampment. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the dead were local gunmen who were killed “while attempting to confront (Zionist) forces, following calls by the mosques in the area for jihad against the (Zionist) incursion”.

The Syrian ministry said the Zionist strikes came as the country was trying to rebuild after 14 years of war, calling it a strategy to “normalize violence within the country”. Neighboring Jordan said Israel’s repeated attacks on Syrian territory constituted a clear breach of the 1974 disengagement agreement between the two countries and a “flagrant violation of international law”. Qatar, a key ally of the new government, condemned the strikes as a “blatant violation of Syria’s sovereignty and territorial integrity”. – Agencies