Israeli Missile Strike Hits Aleppo Airport in Syria
The Israeli Air Force, flying over the Mediterranean Sea, launched a missile strike Tuesday against the international airport of Syria’s northern city of Aleppo, damaging the runway and rendering it inoperable, the Syrian military said.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based group that monitors the conflict, said that among the targets of the airstrike was a warehouse in the airport compound used by Iran-affiliated militia. “Three people were killed and five were wounded,” the group said, adding that six missiles were fired.
Syria said its air defenses responded to the attack, shooting down a number of the missiles.
The airport just three days earlier had resumed flights following the last Israeli attack, which occurred on August 31. Syrian Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad responded to that attack on September 1 by warning that Israel was playing with fire and would eventually pay for its repeated attacks on Syria.
“Syria will not be silent in the face of the repetitive Israeli attacks and Israelis will pay the price sooner or later,” he said in a statement carried on the official Foreign Ministry Twitter account.
Mekdad blamed the US and its Western allies for encouraging Israel’s actions.
Israel regularly targets arms depots and facilities used in the transport of weapons and military equipment to Iranian forces and Tehran’s allies and proxies in the region, such as Hizbullah. An Israeli missile strike in June put the Damascus airport out of commission for two weeks.
