'For peace, prepare for war': How Turkey sees Israel's attack on Qatar

Ankara unconcerned about imminent Israeli threat over Hamas presence but vows to strengthen deterrence

12.09.2025

By Ragip Soylu in Ankara

Source:https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/peace-prepare-war-how-turkey-sees-israel-attack-qatar

Israel’s daylight strike on Hamas’s leadership in Doha this week has rattled the Gulf and vindicated Turkey's warnings about Tel Aviv's readiness to disregard established red lines.

For months, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan has argued that Israel is pursuing an expansionist strategy, indifferent to sovereignty and international law.

Many Gulf states, however, assumed that US security guarantees would deter Israel from crossing certain boundaries, especially in Qatar, home to Washington’s largest military base in the region, with around 30,000 troops stationed there.

Turkey views Qatar as both an ally and a partner, tied by military cooperation and close political relations. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan swiftly condemned the strike and, after a phone call with Qatar’s emir, promised to coordinate “joint steps” in response.

Yet beyond expressions of solidarity, Turkey’s options remain limited.

Ankara maintains six F-16s at a joint squadron in Doha, but the deployment is modest and lacks air defence capabilities. Moreover, Qatar’s security framework is multi-layered, involving not only the US but also the United Kingdom and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC).

Any response, therefore, is likely to be collective and cautious, designed to prevent direct escalation with Israel.

The attack has nonetheless deepened already fraught tensions between Turkey and Israel, raising questions about the possibility of confrontation.

Following the air strikes on Qatar, the Turkish Air Force scrambled jets from its Diyarbakir and Malatya airbases and stepped up air patrols over Turkish airspace, sources familiar with the matter told MEE.

Speculation about Israeli operations in Turkey surfaced after the Lebanese daily Al-Akhbar, citing Egyptian sources, claimed that Israel had considered targeting Hamas leaders on Turkish soil before choosing Qatar.

Such reports are difficult to verify. Al-Akhbar is aligned with Hezbollah, and Egyptian officials are unlikely to possess inside knowledge of Israeli planning. Still, the story gained traction after being amplified by Kan, Israel’s public broadcaster.

Ankara has not treated these claims as credible. A former senior Turkish military official, speaking anonymously to Middle East Eye, dismissed them as manipulative.

“If there is no direct threat, Turkey won’t and shouldn’t respond to social media provocations,” he said. “Constantly imagining an Israeli attack on Turkey only strengthens [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu’s psychological warfare, handing Israel a power projection it does not currently have.”

War for peace

Israeli sources maintain that, since the 7 October Hamas attack, Israel has altered its national security doctrine to treat all potential threats as immediate, rather than delaying its response.

Israeli leaders, including Netanyahu, have repeatedly vowed to pursue Hamas figures “wherever they are”. That rhetoric carries symbolic weight in Turkey, which has hosted Hamas members since 2011, when around 40 were relocated there as part of the Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange.

One senior Turkish official, also speaking on condition of anonymity, summed up Ankara’s general position by quoting Erdogan: “Be prepared for war if you want stable peace.”

Turkey has recently intensified investment in missile and air defence capabilities, unveiling new ballistic and cruise missile systems earlier this year.

Erdogan also inaugurated a $1.5bn research facility for the defence contractor Aselsan, which develops radar, electronic warfare, and air defence systems under the branding “Steel Dome”. Deliveries have included the Siper air defence system, able to engage targets at a range of 150 km.

On the day of the Qatar attack, Aselsan signed a new agreement worth $1.9bn with the Turkish government to produce and deliver air-defence systems between 2027 and 2031.

Turkey last month also started building bomb shelters in all 81 provinces.

Still, challenges remain.

Turkey’s fleet of F-16s is aging, and negotiations with the US to rejoin the F-35 programme have stalled. This has pushed Ankara to accelerate development of indigenous platforms such as the Kaan next-generation fighter jet, slated for 2030, and the stealth-capable unmanned jet Kizilelma.

Officials also acknowledge that air defence alone may not fully counter Israeli capabilities. Israel’s F-35s are designed to evade detection, and while Nato radars and Turkish airborne early warning and control planes AWACS improve coverage, some vulnerabilities remain.

Turkish analysts argue, however, that any Israeli violation of Turkish airspace would trigger an immediate and escalatory response.

“We were the first Nato nation to shoot down a Russian jet since the Cold War. If it comes to that, we could be the first to down an F-35,” a source familiar with Ankara’s thinking told MEE.

'Turkey can give us a serious headache'

Beyond the risk of air strikes, Ankara is also mindful of possible Israeli assassination attempts against Hamas operatives inside Turkey.

In past years, Turkish intelligence has disrupted networks tracking Palestinian figures on its territory.

Similar covert operations by Russian and Iranian agents during the 2010s exposed vulnerabilities, but officials argue that Turkey’s counterintelligence capacity has since grown substantially.

They stress that protecting Hamas members is not only a political choice but also a matter of safeguarding Turkish sovereignty against foreign clandestine activity.

Even so, most officials believe Turkey and Israel will ultimately manage tensions through US mediation and intelligence channels established in 2022.

“Israel won’t carry out any assassinations in Turkey - it’s a formidable military power, a Nato member, and can give us a serious headache,” Eran Lerman, Israel’s former deputy national security advisor, said in an interview with Foreign Policy last year.

“In the past, it has helped us foil Iranian attempts to kill Israelis on Turkish soil, and there are channels of communication between our [intelligence] services and theirs.”