Roman Gofman and Asaad al-Shaibani reportedly met to restore an Israel-Syria security channel disrupted by Israel’s strike on the Abu al-Duhur airbase. Behind the immediate crisis is a larger dispute over Turkey’s expanding role in Syria and an unfinished security arrangement between Jerusalem and Damascus.
Mossad Director Roman Gofman reportedly met Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani on Sunday, August 23, just five days after an Israeli airstrike on a Syrian military airbase pushed already-fragile Israel-Syria security talks into crisis.
Multiple Israeli and international outlets, including Haaretz, Axios, N12, i24NEWS and The Jerusalem Post, reported the meeting based on sources familiar with the talks.
The meeting has not been publicly confirmed by either government. Its location was not disclosed.
Sources nevertheless described the talks as positive. One source told i24NEWS that the meeting was “good,” while The Jerusalem Post reported that the two sides agreed to continue their dialogue and work toward putting the security negotiations back on track.
That makes the encounter significant not because Israel and Syria suddenly appear headed toward peace, but because it suggests that a direct back channel between the two governments survived a military confrontation that had threatened to derail it.
The Strike That Put the Talks at Risk
The immediate crisis began on August 18, when Israel struck the Abu al-Duhur military airbase in Syria’s northwestern Idlib province.
Israeli officials acknowledged the attack and said it was intended to prevent what Jerusalem believed was an emerging Turkish military deployment at the facility.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel had detected an intention by Turkey to establish itself at an airfield near Aleppo and had warned Syria against allowing the move.
Defense Minister Israel Katz said Israeli officials first issued a direct warning to the Syrian government. According to Katz, when the warning did not produce the response Israel wanted, Netanyahu and Katz authorized the IDF strike.
Israeli reporting said the attack targeted the runway and related infrastructure. No casualties were reported.
But one of the most important details surrounding the episode remains disputed.
Israel says intelligence indicated Turkey intended to deploy radar systems, followed by air-defense equipment and Turkish personnel to operate them.
Syria and Turkey deny that account.
Al-Shaibani said Damascus had informed Israel that there was no plan for a permanent Turkish military base at Abu al-Duhur and that work on the airfield was intended to restore it for use by Syria’s own air force.
Turkey likewise denied planning a permanent military presence at the base and has described its military cooperation with the new Syrian government as centered on training and professional assistance.
No independent evidence confirming the alleged radar or air-defense deployment has been made public.
The distinction matters. Turkey’s growing military relationship with Damascus is real. Turkish training assistance, weapons sales and the provision of drones to Syria have been reported by Reuters and discussed directly by Israeli officials.
The specific claim that Turkey was about to deploy radar, air-defense systems and personnel at Abu al-Duhur, however, remains an Israeli intelligence assessment disputed by both Ankara and Damascus.
Gofman Had Already Warned Syria
The August 23 meeting was not the first recent contact between Gofman and al-Shaibani.
Reuters reported that the two spoke by phone on August 14, four days before the Israeli strike.
During that conversation, Gofman raised Israeli concerns about Turkey’s increasing military involvement in Syria, including weapons transfers, drones and other military activity.
That phone call is important because it shows that Israel attempted to address the issue through a direct channel with Damascus before resorting to military action.
The strike nevertheless badly damaged that dialogue.
Afterward, al-Shaibani said negotiations with Israel had been “halted.” He also publicly expressed deep distrust of Jerusalem, while leaving the door open to further talks.
Five days after the strike, he was reportedly sitting down with the Mossad director.
This Is About Security, Not Normalization
The contacts are part of a much broader negotiation process that began after the collapse of Bashar al-Assad’s government in December 2024.
Israel and Syria have no diplomatic relations and technically remain at war.
Yet officials from the new government of President Ahmed al-Sharaa and senior Israeli officials have held repeated talks, with substantial U.S. mediation.
In 2025, Israeli Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer met al-Shaibani in Paris in at least two rounds of negotiations. Another round took place in London in September, with U.S. envoy Tom Barrack serving as an intermediary.
The talks have centered on a new security arrangement for southern Syria.
That distinction is essential.
There is currently no verified indication that Israel and Syria are negotiating normalization, diplomatic recognition or a comprehensive peace treaty.
Instead, the negotiations have dealt with issues such as demilitarization, military deployments near Israel’s border, the future of the 1974 Disengagement Agreement, Israeli positions inside Syrian territory and security guarantees concerning the Druze population in southern Syria.
Syria has also pushed for the withdrawal of Israeli forces from territory entered after Assad’s fall.
Israel moved into the UN-monitored buffer zone in December 2024 and took control of positions including the Syrian side of Mount Hermon after Syrian government forces withdrew from the area.
Those territorial and security disputes remain unresolved.
Turkey Is Now the Complicating Factor
The Abu al-Duhur confrontation illustrates how Turkey has become one of the biggest variables in the Israel-Syria relationship.
Ankara is a major supporter of Syria’s new government and has been helping rebuild its military capabilities.
For Israel, the concern is not simply that Turkish forces might appear somewhere inside Syria.
Israeli officials are particularly worried about radar and air-defense systems capable of restricting the Israeli Air Force’s freedom of operation.
Israel has carried out air operations over Syria for years and views Syrian airspace as strategically important both for operations against threats inside the country and in the wider confrontation with Iran.
Netanyahu has publicly said Israel will not tolerate a Turkish military buildup moving farther south inside Syria.
From Damascus’s perspective, however, Turkey is an important strategic partner, and Syrian officials insist that Israel should not dictate which countries Syria may cooperate with militarily.
That creates a structural problem for the negotiations.
Israel wants guarantees that Syria will not become a platform for military capabilities it considers threatening.
Syria wants restored sovereignty and the ability to rebuild its armed forces and conduct foreign relations without repeated Israeli intervention.
Turkey sits directly between those two positions.
A Rare Role for the Mossad Chief
Gofman’s personal involvement also makes the talks unusual.
He became Mossad director on June 2, 2026, after previously serving as Netanyahu’s military secretary.
Mossad chiefs have historically participated in secret diplomacy and sensitive foreign contacts, particularly with states that lack formal relations with Israel.
But direct reported contact between the serving Mossad director and the foreign minister of a country formally at war with Israel highlights just how unconventional the current relationship with Damascus remains.
There are no embassies and no formal diplomatic channel.
Instead, Israel and Syria are communicating through a mixture of intelligence contacts, political negotiations and U.S. mediation.
The August 23 meeting suggests that, at least for now, Gofman has become one of the central Israeli figures in that channel.
The Back Channel Survived, The Disputes Did Not Disappear
The strongest conclusion from the meeting is also the narrowest one.
The Israel-Syria security channel appears to have survived the Abu al-Duhur crisis.
That is meaningful considering that only days earlier Israel had bombed a Syrian military facility after rejecting Damascus’s assurances about what was happening there.
But there is no evidence yet of a breakthrough.
The location of the Gofman-al-Shaibani meeting remains undisclosed. Neither side has announced concrete agreements. No date has been publicly set for a new formal round of negotiations, and Syria has made clear that its distrust of Israel remains significant.
The underlying disagreements are also substantial: Israel’s military presence in southern Syria, Syrian demands for sovereignty and withdrawal, the future military balance near the border, protections for the Druze and, increasingly, Turkey’s role inside the country.
For now, the significance of the meeting is simpler.
Five days after an Israeli strike appeared to rupture the diplomatic process, the Mossad chief and Syria’s foreign minister were reportedly talking again.
The security agreement is unfinished, the Turkish dispute is unresolved, and normalization is not on the table.
But the channel between Jerusalem and Damascus remains open.
