Israel stepped up airstrikes on Syria overnight, declaring the attacks a warning to the new Islamist rulers in Damascus as it accused their Turkish allies on Thursday of trying to turn the country into a Turkish protectorate.

Syria’s foreign ministry described Israel’s attacks on five locations across the country as an ‘unjustified escalation’.

Also since Assad's fall, Israel has deployed troops to a United Nations-patrolled buffer zone on the strategic Golan Heights and called for the complete demilitarisation of southern Syria, which borders the Israeli-annexed Golan.