Benjamin Netanyahu said in a podcast interview that he had warned Turkey against military activity in Syria before Israeli aircraft struck the Abu al Duhur airbase, and that the warning was one word in English: don't. He said the message was conveyed but apparently not heard, so Israel made sure it was understood more clearly, a reference to the strike itself.
The warning did not stand alone. Mossad chief Roman Gofman held a phone call with Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani on 14 August, four days before the strike, to raise the same issue of a Turkish military presence in Syria. It is described as one of the highest level contacts between the two sides since Bashar al-Assad fell in December 2024, meaning the warning reached Damascus through a direct channel before it arrived at Abu al Duhur by air.
Not everyone in Israel accepts the timing. Former prime minister Ehud Barak called the strike reckless and stupid, and suggested it was shaped by politics ahead of an election rather than by the security case Netanyahu's office has made. Netanyahu's account, delivered on a podcast rather than in a formal statement, is itself part of what Barak is objecting to.
Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes in Syria since Ahmed al-Sharaa's Islamist forces removed Assad, and this one sits inside a relationship that includes both bombing raids and a direct line from the Mossad chief to the Syrian foreign minister. Netanyahu's one word answer is meant to make the message sound simple. The channel it travelled through is not.