The region we still routinely call the Middle East – increasingly called West Asia – is undergoing a profound transformation. And to understand what is happening we need to put together some apparently separate news that has happened in the last few hours. Israel has once again intensified operations in southern Lebanon. A few days earlier he had bombed a Syrian air base claiming he wanted to prevent Turkey’s military expansion. At the same time, Israeli troops continue to operate in southern Syria, beyond the lines prior to the fall of Bashar al-Assad. And on a diplomatic level, the United Arab Emirates, the country symbol of the Abraham Accords, have signed together with Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey a very harsh condemnation of the expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank.
All these events speak to something bigger: the regional balances built in recent years are shifting, and Israel is trying to impose a new depth of security on its borders even as other regional powers try to prevent it from transforming it into a new permanent order.
Lebanon burns again
The first front is the best known. At dawn on Saturday 22 August, Israeli artillery shelled al-Mansouri, the Bayt al-Sayyad area and the outskirts of Majdal Zoun. According to the Lebanese national agency Nna, demolitions and military operations were also conducted in several locations in the south, while Israeli planes hit the area of the Ali al-Tahir heights and drones continuously flew over the sector.
Taken in isolation they might seem like episodes of that low-intensity war that has never completely stopped. The problem is that in recent weeks the pace has increased. Between August 7 and 9, Unifil counted 455 Israeli projectiles fired towards southern Lebanon and 97 violations of Lebanese airspace, one of the highest levels of activity in recent months.
On August 15, Israeli attacks in Ansar and Deir al-Zahrani resulted in 11 deaths and 19 injuries, including civilians, according to the Lebanese authorities. Israel claimed it targeted Hezbollah infrastructure and commanders in response to the Shiite militia’s activities. Hezbollah promised a response.
The difference compared to the great battles of the past is that, at least for now, there has not been a systematic exchange of hundreds of rockets between Hezbollah and Israel. The ceasefire reached in June formally continues to exist, but is increasingly fragile. Israel also maintains a security zone within Lebanese territory: a strip which, according to Reuters, reaches about ten kilometers deep in some places and which the Netanyahu government considers necessary to prevent Hezbollah from returning close to the border.
Israel entered Syria and never left
The second front is Syria. When Bashar al-Assad’s regime collapsed in December 2024, Israel crossed the line established by the 1974 disengagement agreement, entering the UN-monitored buffer zone and also taking control of the Syrian side of Mount Hermon.
The presence was initially described as temporary. As the months passed, the Israeli position changed. Defense Minister Israel Katz said troops will remain on Mount Hermon and in the security zone indefinitely; Netanyahu also called for the demilitarization of the southern Syrian provinces of Quneitra, Daraa and Suwayda. A United Nations report considers the Israeli presence in the separation zone a violation of the 1974 agreement.
Even in the last few hours, Israeli forces have entered the province of Quneitra, while Damascus continues to ask for a return to the situation before the fall of Assad. The new Syrian president Ahmed al-Sharaa has so far chosen a very different strategy from that of the old regime: he seeks a security agreement with Israel and claims that he does not want a new war, but demands Israeli withdrawal from the occupied areas after December 2024. And this is precisely where Turkey comes into the picture.
Why Israel bombed a Syrian base near Turkey
On August 18, eight Israeli strikes hit the Abu al-Duhur air base in northwestern Syria, damaging the runway and warehouses. It is not found near Israel. However, it is located relatively close to Türkiye. Jerusalem claims to have discovered that the Syrian government was about to allow Turkish forces to use the base. Ankara and Damascus deny it: according to the Syrian government, Turkish officials had visited the installation as part of cooperation for the reconstruction of the new armed forces, but there was no project to transform it into a permanent Turkish base.
Turkey moved to expand its military presence in Syria toward Israel’s border. Israel detected the threat and acted before it escalated.
See the map. See what happened. pic.twitter.com/Bm465pwwMH
— Prime Minister of Israel (@IsraeliPM) August 21, 2026
It’s a notable strategic shift. For years, Israel has bombed Syria primarily to prevent Iran from building its own military infrastructure and transferring weapons to Hezbollah. Today, after the collapse of the Assad regime and the reduction of Iranian influence in the country, the foreign power that is gaining greater influence on the new Syria is Turkey.
Ankara trains the new Syrian armed forces and politically supports the al-Sharaa government. Israel fears that this influence could turn into a permanent military presence. The result is that two major regional military powers are moving dangerously close together in the same space.
The risk of an Israel-Türkiye clash
The severity of the Abu al-Duhur incident is evidenced by the American reaction. US envoy Tom Barrack called the Israeli bombing an “unnecessary escalation” and explained that Washington is trying to build a true deconfliction mechanism between Israel, Turkey and Syria. The reason is simple: Ankara would not have been informed in advance of the attack. The Turks then saw Israeli planes heading towards an area relatively close to their territory and could have interpreted the movement as a threat. The United States wants to avoid the next episode ending with a downed plane or with Turkish soldiers involved in an Israeli bombing.
Ankara has called the Israeli accusations “untenable” and accuses Netanyahu of using security to justify an expansionist policy in Syria. Israel responds by accusing Turkey of venturing dangerously into the country. This could become one of the most important fault lines in the new Middle East: no longer just Israel against the Iranian axis, but Israel and Turkey competing to determine the shape of post-Assad Syria.
The NATO issue: how far can Israel go against Turkey?
What makes the confrontation between Israel and Türkiye even more delicate is the NATO factor. In the Israeli strategic debate the hypothesis has openly appeared that any attacks against Turkish forces deployed in Syria would not automatically trigger Article 5 of the Atlantic Treaty, because the guarantee of collective defense covers Turkish territory but not necessarily Ankara’s troops engaged on Syrian soil.
There is a precedent in 2020: dozens of Turkish soldiers were killed in Idlib without the Alliance entering the war, while Ankara limited itself to asking for consultations under Article 4. It is also to prevent a new Israeli raid hitting Turkish soldiers, or an Ankara fighter reacting against Israeli aircraft, that the United States is working on a deconfliction mechanism between Israel, Turkey and Syria.
Then there is the surprise of the Emirates
While military tension grows in the north, something is also moving in the Arab and Islamic world. On August 21, the foreign ministers of the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Egypt, Jordan, Turkey, Pakistan and Indonesia signed a joint statement against Israel’s settlement policy in the West Bank.
Joint Statement by the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the UAE, KSA, Qatar, Jordan, Indonesia, Pakistan, Türkiye, and Egypthttps://t.co/CN9NZYVYkJ https://t.co/xvbnq37zuJ
— MoFA وزارة الخارجية (@mofauae) August 21, 2026
The document unambiguously condemns the E1 project, i.e. the expansion of settlements between East Jerusalem and Ma’ale Adumim. The signatories argue that the project risks destroying the territorial continuity necessary for the birth of a Palestinian state and reiterate the objective of an independent state on the lines of 1967 with East Jerusalem as its capital.
Israel approves new plan to cut West Bank in two. The far right rejoices: “The illusion of two states has been erased”
There is also a politically fraught step: the eight countries support the adoption of international measures and sanctions against individuals and entities responsible for illegal settlement expansion and annexation.
If the Emirates have always formally supported the two-state solution and the 1967 borders, the news is that they are progressively raising the political price of Israeli choices and are doing so together with countries that have very different positions from theirs in the new regional balance, starting with Qatar and Türkiye.
The Abraham Accords are still alive, but something has changed
It is above all the position of the Emirates that makes the declaration important. In 2020, Abu Dhabi became the first major Gulf country to formally normalize relations with Israel through the Abraham Accords. Since then the two countries have built a very strong economic relationship. The agreements have not been canceled or suspended. In May the Emirates Foreign Ministry explicitly reiterated that relations with Israel continue within the framework of the Abraham Accords. And the numbers show how concrete they have become: in 2025 trade between Israel and the Emirates reached 3.209 billion dollars, while cumulative trade from September 2020 to March 2026 exceeded 14 billion dollars.
But there is a red line. As early as September 2025, Emirati diplomat Lana Nusseibeh publicly warned Israel that annexing the West Bank would threaten the Abraham Accords. Abu Dhabi had even considered a possible reduction in diplomatic relations if Netanyahu had proceeded towards a formal annexation. And the E1 project hits exactly that nerve.
The new Middle East that is taking shape
Israel is seeking to build much greater strategic depth than before October 7, 2023: a security belt in Lebanon, a military presence in southern Syria, the demilitarization of the area as far south as Damascus, and the ability to preemptively prevent powers considered hostile from establishing Syrian military infrastructure. But neighbors see those same safety zones as occupations destined to become permanent. Ankara interprets the bombings in Syria as an Israeli attempt to impose a veto on Damascus’ foreign policy. Arab states fear that the settlements could make a Palestinian state permanently impossible.
Everyone says they want to prevent the next war, but to do so they are building the conditions that can provoke it.