Israel has accused Turkey of trying to turn their common neighbour Syria into a protectorate.

In parallel with that accusation, the Israelis late on April 2 stepped up airstrikes on Syria, telling Damascus that it should see the attacks as a warning. Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said that the airstrikes should serve as "a clear message and a warning for the future – we will not allow the security of the State of Israel to be harmed."

Katz added in a statement that armed forces of Israel would remain stationed in buffer zones within Syria and act against threats to its security. Syria's government, he said, would pay a heavy price if it permitted forces hostile to Israel to enter. This was a clear reference to Turkish forces.

The Syrian foreign ministry said the April 2 airstrikes targeted "five locations across the country within 30 minutes, resulting in the near-total destruction of Hama Military Airport [in west-central Syria] and injuring dozens of civilians and military personnel".

Turkey – thought to be moving to take over T4 air base in central Syria, another one of the air bases Israel has this week bombed – on April 3 said that Israel must withdraw from Syria and cease harming stabilisation efforts there. Turkey backs the transitional administration that has emerged in Damascus since former strongman Bashar al-Assad fled in the face of a military offensive, endorsed by Ankara, in December. Ankara’s influence over the new Damascus government is thought to be huge by some analysts, hence the Israeli worries over a possible protectorate taking shape. Israel also worries that the new Damascus regime has jihadist roots. President of Syria since January is Ahmed al-Sharaa, former commander of jihadist group Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS).

"Israel has become the greatest threat to regional security" and is a "strategic destabiliser, causing chaos and feeding terrorism," the Foreign Ministry in Ankara said on April 3, as per Reuters.

"Therefore, in order to establish security throughout the region, Israel must first abandon its expansionist policies, withdraw from the territories [in southwestern Syria] it occupies, and stop undermining efforts to establish stability in Syria," it added.

Israel has blown up much of the Syrian military's heavy weapons and equipment since Assad fell.