Syria says Israeli airstrikes hit Damascus, Aleppo airports
Local media report runways hit in both locations, putting them out of service; Syrian military source accuses Israel of trying to divert attention from Gaza war
Syrian state media reported that Israeli airstrikes on Thursday hit the international airports of the capital Damascus and the northern city of Aleppo, damaging their runways and putting them out of service.
State news agency SANA quoted an unnamed military official as saying that no one was hurt in the attacks.
It would mark the first Israeli airstrikes on Syria since the Palestinian terror group Hamas carried out its vicious weekend onslaught in southern Israel that killed over 1,000 people, the vast majority of them civilians. Israel has retaliated with intensive airstrikes on Hamas targets in Gaza.
A Syrian military official told SANA, “This aggression is a desperate attempt by the criminal Israeli enemy to divert attention from the crimes it is committing in Gaza, and the great losses it is suffering at the hands of the Palestinian resistance.”
The Israeli military declined to comment.
The airstrikes came a day before Iran’s foreign minister was scheduled to visit Syria to meet officials over the volatile situation in the region.
On Tuesday, a number of mortars were fired from Syria at the Golan Heights. The IDF said several of the projectiles crossed into Israeli territory and landed in open areas, causing no damage.
The IDF said it carried out artillery strikes in Syria in response, targeting the origin of the mortar fire.
Later the same day, 15 rockets were fired from Lebanon at the Western Galilee, setting off sirens in several towns. Four projectiles were intercepted by the Iron Dome air defense system, while the rest landed in open areas, causing no damage or injuries, the IDF said.
Hamas later claimed responsibility for the rocket fire.
War erupted after Hamas’s Saturday massacre, which saw at least 1,500 terrorists cross the border into Israel from the Gaza Strip by land, air and sea, killing about 1,000 people and seizing 150 hostages of all ages under the cover of a deluge of thousands of rockets fired at Israeli towns and cities.
The vast majority of those killed as gunmen seized border communities were civilians — men, women and children. Entire families were executed in their homes and in some locations, the Palestinian terrorists reportedly mutilated their victims.
Since then, the death toll in Israel has swelled to more than 1,300.
Israel has retaliated with artillery and airstrikes, and officials from the Hamas-controlled health ministry estimate more than 1,100 Palestinian have been killed in the ferocious fighting. Israel says it is targeting terrorist infrastructure and all areas where Hamas operates or hides out, while issuing evacuation warnings to civilians in regions it plans to attack.
Last week Syria accused Israel of an airstrike that hit military targets, injuring two soldiers.
Earlier this year, the airports of Damascus and Aleppo were hit several times.
As a rule, the IDF does not comment on specific strikes in Syria, though it has admitted to conducting hundreds of sorties against Iran-backed groups attempting to gain a foothold in the country, over the last decade. Thousands of Iran-backed fighters from around the region joined Syria’s 12-year civil war to help tip the balance in favor of President Bashar Assad’s forces.
The military says it attacks arms shipments believed to be bound for those groups, chief among them Lebanon’s Hezbollah terror group. Additionally, airstrikes attributed to Israel have repeatedly targeted Syrian air defense systems.
Israel has repeatedly accused the Syrian military of actively assisting the Iran-backed Hezbollah in the area.
Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.
