A view of Damascus International Airport in Syria (Photo via social media)
Damascus, October 22 (RHC)-- At least two workers were killed after Israel carried out fresh aerial assaults on the Arab country’s two main airports in the cities of Damascus and Aleppo, putting both facilities out of service in the third such attack within a span of 10 days.
Syria’s official news agency SANA, citing an unnamed military source, reported that the strikes came simultaneously at around 5:35 a.m. local time (0235 GMT) on Sunday.
The source added that Israeli missiles fired from the direction of the occupied Golan Heights hit the Damascus International Airport, while jets flying over the Mediterranean Sea struck Aleppo International Airport in Syria’s second-largest city.
Runways in both airports were damaged, causing all flights in and out of both airports to be canceled or diverted to an airport in the western coastal city of Latakia, the report added.
Israeli air raids have repeatedly targeted the two airports in the past, causing flights to be grounded and inflicting human casualties and material damage, but this is the second time simultaneous strikes have hit the facilities since the beginning of Israeli bombardment of besieged Gaza after Hamas’s October 7 attacks inside Israel that have killed more than 1,400 people.
Israeli bombardments have killed about 4,400 people in Gaza, according to the latest figures, with many victims being women and children.
Simultaneous air raids hit the airports in both cities on October 12, with Syria saying they knocked out the two at the time as well. Israeli strikes targeted the Aleppo separately last weekend as well. A war monitor reported that the attack also put the airport out of service and wounded five people.
Earlier this month, a drone attack hit a military college in Syria’s Homs province, which according to a war monitor killed more than 100 people.
Israel launched the first air strikes on the two main airports in Syria shortly after the start of the war as it is concerned about new fronts being opened in the deadly conflict.
A Ministry of Foreign Affairs official had previously said Israel remains concerned that Iran could be utilising the airports to move military assets and use them against it.
Iran has repeatedly warned that the resistance fighters it supports across the region could strike Israel, expanding the scope of the war, if Israel refuses to stop targeting civilians in Gaza, who have been left without water, fuel and medicine for the majority of the duration of the war.
The first shipments of humanitarian aid trickled into Gaza on Saturday as Egypt temporarily opened the Rafah crossing after Israeli approval.
