Syria says Israel struck Aleppo airport, putting it out of service

Israel launched an airstrike against an international airport in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo before dawn on Monday, putting it out of service, Syria’s state-run media reported.

The Syrian state news agency, SANA, said that at around 4:30 a.m., Israeli Air Force warplanes fired their missiles from over the Mediterranean Sea, west of the coastal Syrian city of Latakia, and targeted Aleppo International Airport.

It said the airport was forced shut temporarily due to heavy damage caused to the runway by the strikes.

There were no reports of injuries in the airstrike.

It would be the fifth time in under a year that alleged Israeli strikes have put the Aleppo airport out of service, with a similar attack taking place in May 2023, two in March of this year, and one in September 2022.

Israel is believed to be targeting Syria’s airports to counter Iran’s growing use of commercial flights to bring military supplies into the country, which are later trucked into Lebanon to be used by the Hezbollah terror group.

This satellite photo from Planet Labs PBC shows the damage after an alleged Israeli strike targeting the Aleppo International Airport in Aleppo, Syria, September 7, 2022. (Planet Labs PBC via AP)

While Israel’s military does not, as a rule, comment on specific strikes in Syria, it has admitted to conducting hundreds of sorties against Iran-backed groups attempting to gain a foothold in the country, over the last decade.

The Israeli military says it attacks arms shipments believed to be bound for those groups, chief among them Lebanon’s Hezbollah. Additionally, airstrikes attributed to Israel have repeatedly targeted Syrian air defense systems.

The last alleged Israeli sortie over Syria was carried out on August 21, when fighter jets reportedly carried out strikes against targets in Damascus, wounding one Syrian soldier.