Report: An Israeli attack takes the Syrian Aleppo airport out of service. News of the Syrian war

Syrian official media said that the Israeli missile attacks damaged the runway of Aleppo International Airport.

Syrian state media said that Israel launched an air strike on the Syrian airport in Aleppo, which damaged the airport’s runway and put it out of service.

The SANA news agency said the missile attacks took place early Tuesday morning.

SANA, quoting a military source, said that Israel “carried out an air attack from the direction of the Mediterranean Sea, west of Latakia, targeting Aleppo International Airport.” SANA said the raid “caused material damage” to the airport and “put it out of service”.

It was not immediately clear if there were any injuries.

There was no comment from Israeli officials.

The city of Aleppo, which suffered widespread destruction in the Syrian civil war, was hit hard again in the deadly 7.8-magnitude earthquake that struck southern Turkey and northwest Syria last month. Since then, a number of countries have sent aid shipments to the city’s airport.

For nearly a decade, Israel has carried out hundreds of air strikes against suspected Iranian-sponsored arms transfers and personnel deployments to neighboring Syria, but it rarely acknowledges or discusses the operations.

Military analysts say the raids, which have targeted Syrian airports and air bases in recent months, are part of an escalation of what was a low-intensity conflict aimed at slowing Iran’s growing entrenchment in Syria.

Iran, which backs Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, has expanded its military presence in Syria in recent years and has a foothold in most areas controlled by the state and thousands of militia members and local paramilitary factions under its command, according to Western intelligence sources. .

Iran’s proxy militias, led by Lebanon’s Hezbollah, now control large areas of eastern, south and northwest Syria and in several suburbs around the capital, Damascus.

On February 19, Israeli airstrikes targeted residential areas in Damascus, killing at least five people and wounding 15 others, according to Syrian state news.

On January 2, the Syrian military said the Israeli army fired missiles towards the capital’s international airport, putting it out of service and killing two soldiers.