diff --git a/operator/pom.xml b/operator/pom.xml
index 08d5bcdb45..ab7fe2a85b 100644
--- a/operator/pom.xml
+++ b/operator/pom.xml
@@ -26,7 +26,7 @@
         <project.reporting.outputEncoding>UTF-8</project.reporting.outputEncoding>
         <awaitility.version>4.2.1</awaitility.version>
         <kubernetes-client-java-gen.version>6.12.1</kubernetes-client-java-gen.version>
-        <assertj.core.version>3.25.3</assertj.core.version>
+        <assertj.core.version>3.26.0</assertj.core.version>
         <bouncycastle.version>1.70</bouncycastle.version>
         <!-- ATTENTION! The Quarkus version needs to be aligned with the Quarkus Operator SDK -->
         <!-- TODO: possibly stabilize on something shared with the rest of the repo -->