By Prof. Dr. Mehmet Hasgüler | Guest Commentary
Prof. Dr. Mehmet Hasgüler is a Turkish Cypriot scholar of international relations and Cyprus studies. He previously served as deputy chair of the Higher Education Planning, Evaluation, Accreditation and Coordination Council (YÖDAK) and ran as an independent candidate in the 2025 Turkish Cypriot presidential election. He has written extensively on the Cyprus conflict.
Written exclusively for Bosphorus News XTRA. Translated from Turkish by Murat Yıldız.
The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Bosphorus News.
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Could Israel Occupy Northern Cyprus?
As we all know, Israel has for years acted as the West's, and particularly the United States', gendarme in the Middle East. It no longer appears satisfied with that role. Its aim is to become the region's dominant power and establish hegemony. To get there, it has to crush the countries it sees as rivals, or at least push them back and weaken them.
Last week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel's bombing of an airbase in Syria was a warning to Türkiye. New information has since emerged about what the Israeli aircraft allegedly intended to do after the strike.
According to a report carried on the front page of the Turkish Cypriot newspaper Avrupa on Sunday, the pilots realized they had been detected by Turkish radar and decided to turn back immediately after the attack. The original plan, the newspaper reported, was to continue flying parallel to the Turkish border and then create a provocation by producing sonic booms over northern Cyprus. Once the aircraft were detected, that part of the plan was abandoned.
I learned about this from Avrupa. Şener Levent once again did justice to journalism by putting on his front page the issue that should really have been occupying our attention.
I hope more people now understand how serious this is.
The possibility of an Israeli attack on northern Cyprus is not a conspiracy theory. In my view, it is a danger that has come very close.
We know by now that Israel sees Türkiye as an obstacle to its ambitions. I wrote previously that Israel could try to provoke a controlled ground war with Türkiye inside Syria. It would have reason to keep such a conflict outside Türkiye's borders because it does not want a direct war with Türkiye itself.
Türkiye is a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). A direct attack on Turkish territory would immediately raise Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, under which an armed attack against one member is considered an attack against them all.
Of course, I do not believe that NATO would necessarily stand with Türkiye against Israel in such a situation. I find it difficult to imagine NATO acting against Israel.
Israel, however, would probably prefer not to put the alliance to that test.
That is why an indirect confrontation offers another route. A limited ground war involving Turkish forces inside Syria is one possibility.
Attacking Turkish soldiers in northern Cyprus is another.
Israeli strategic commentary has for some time been discussing the Turkish military presence on the island in precisely this context. Israeli strategist Shay Gal, writing in Israel Hayom, argued that Article 5 would be effectively inapplicable to a conflict involving Turkish forces in northern Cyprus and went as far as advocating preparations for a contingency operation aimed at removing the Turkish military presence there.¹
An attack on northern Cyprus might therefore fail to activate NATO in the same way as an attack on Türkiye itself. From the United Nations perspective, Israel could also calculate that it would face fewer obstacles because the international legal status of Türkiye's presence on the island is already contested.
As for the European Union, I do not believe it would lift a finger to defend the Turkish military presence in the north.
For all these reasons, Israel sees northern Cyprus as Türkiye's soft underbelly.
Israel has already, in my view, subjected the Republic of Cyprus to a form of soft colonization. Its presence and influence there have grown steadily. If it were able to seize control of the north in some form, it could see that as serving two purposes at once: moving another step toward its Zionist ambitions and inflicting a severe blow on Türkiye, which it regards as a rival.
I do not believe we can simply assume that Israel would rule out adding northern Cyprus to the territories where it has already used military force, from Gaza and the West Bank to Lebanon and Syria. Nor do I believe the danger to civilians would necessarily deter it.
This is why the reported plan to provoke northern Cyprus with sonic booms after the Syrian airstrike has to be taken seriously.
With Israel heading toward elections, many people expect Netanyahu to attempt another act of madness before the vote.
Why could that madness not be northern Cyprus?
Israel's growing interest in Cyprus in recent years is no secret.
Some maps circulated under the banner of "Greater Israel" include Cyprus. These are not official Israeli state maps, but the political imagination behind them should not simply be ignored.
There is a much older historical layer as well. During the Jewish revolt on Cyprus under Roman rule in the second century AD, the Roman historian Cassius Dio claimed that 240,000 people were killed and recorded that Jews were subsequently barred from the island. The casualty figure comes from an ancient source and cannot be treated as a modern verified count.²
That episode remains part of the historical memory invoked by some ideological currents today.
There are Zionist currents that seriously speak of Cyprus, as well as territories that include parts of present-day Türkiye, as lands to which they have a historical or biblical claim. What was once easy to dismiss as marginal thinking should not automatically be treated that way today.
Israel's actions across the region have changed the terms of the discussion.
We therefore have to take its ambitions, dreams or plans concerning Cyprus seriously.
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¹ In a July 29, 2025 opinion article in Israel Hayom, Israeli strategist Shay Gal argued that NATO Article 5 protection would be effectively unavailable in a confrontation over northern Cyprus and called for Israel, Greece and the Republic of Cyprus to prepare a contingency operation targeting the Turkish military presence there. The article represented the author's position, not an announced Israeli government policy. (www.israelhayom.com)
² Cassius Dio's Roman History gives a figure of 240,000 deaths during the revolt on Cyprus. Ancient casualty figures are disputed by modern historians and should not be read as independently verified modern estimates.
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Mehmet Hasgüler completed his doctorate at Ankara University in 1998 and taught at Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart University, where he was appointed professor in 2014. He served as foreign policy adviser to Turkish Cypriot leader Derviş Eroğlu from 2010 to 2013 and sat on YÖDAK from 2015 to 2023. He stood as an independent candidate in the 2025 Turkish Cypriot presidential election.