An Israeli airstrike hit the international airport of Aleppo (north), the second largest city in Syria, for the fourth time since the beginning of the year on Monday, leaving it inoperable, Syrian official media reported.
“The Israeli enemy carried out an airstrike from the Mediterranean, west of Latakia, against Aleppo International Airport,” the official SANA news agency reported, citing a statement from military sources.
An official from the Syrian Ministry of Transport, Sleiman Khalil, confirmed to the French agency AFP that the only runway that was still in use was damaged.
“The technical teams will start today [segunda-feira] repair work so that the airport can be operational again as soon as possible,” Khalil added, noting that the flights had been diverted to the airports in Damascus and Latakia.
Since the start of the war in Syria in 2011, Israel has carried out hundreds of airstrikes on Syrian territory, mainly targeting forces backed by Iran and the Lebanese Shiite movement Hezbollah, allies of Damascus and sworn enemies of Israel, as well as the syrian government. Army.
Syria’s neighbor Israel rarely comments on attacks on Syrian soil, but has often stated that it wants to prevent Iran from establishing itself near its territory.
Asked this Monday by AFP, an Israeli military spokesman declined to comment on the matter: “We do not comment on information from foreign media.”
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Monday’s attacks targeted, in addition to the Aleppo airport, weapons depots at the neighboring Najrab military airfield.
In a statement, the Syrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs reacted to this attack by accusing Israel of “threatening the freedom of movement of aircraft” and endangering “the security of international civil aviation.”
The Aleppo region and its airport have been frequent targets of Israeli attacks since the beginning of the year.
In early May, four Syrian soldiers and three foreign fighters from pro-Iranian groups were killed in attacks targeting Aleppo airport and other targets.
In March, Israeli strikes twice destroyed the Aleppo airport.
Two weeks later, the same airport and nearby pro-Iranian arms depots were attacked, killing four people.
Iranian-backed militias have a strong presence in the Aleppo region and provided essential ground support to the Syrian army during its recapture of rebel-held areas of the city in 2016.
The war in Syria, triggered in March 2011 by the violent repression of peaceful protests by the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, has already caused more than half a million deaths and forced the displacement of several million people.
The conflict has grown enormously complex over the years, involving foreign countries and extremist groups, and multiple fighting fronts.
Source: TSF
