DAMASCUS —
Syria has confirmed major damage including to runways at Damascus International
Airport, which was closed for a second day Saturday for repairs after Israeli
air strikes.
اضافة اعلان
The transport
ministry said in a statement that runways were out of service.
Syria’s official
SANA news agency said the Israeli bombardment wounded a civilian.
Since civil war
broke out in Syria in 2011, Israel has carried out hundreds of air strikes
against its neighbor, targeting government troops as well as allied Iran-backed
forces and fighters from Lebanon’s Shiite militant group Hezbollah.
But rarely have
such attacks caused major flight disruptions. The ministry said air traffic
would remain suspended until repair work is finished and airport security can
be assured.
“Civil aviation
and national companies are working... to repair the sizeable damage at the
airport,” the ministry said, adding a terminal building was also hit.
The Syrian
Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said the missile strike before dawn on
Friday hit the only runway still in service at the airport, as well as several
adjacent buildings. Israeli bombing last year had disabled another runway, it
said.
“The runway, the
control tower, three hangars, warehouses as well as reception rooms were badly
damaged by the Israeli strikes,” the Observatory said.
Some of the
reception rooms were used to receive Iranian officials and Hezbollah members
while the warehouses stored weapons from Iran, it said.
The Britain-based
Observatory, which relies on a network of sources within Syria, said the
strikes wounded an undetermined number of people.
Satellite images
posted on Twitter by the Israeli firm ISI showed three separate areas of what
it said was “extensive damage to both military and civilian runways” caused by
the strikes.
The airport is in
a region south of Damascus where Iran-backed groups, including Lebanon’s Hezbollah,
regularly operate.
The area has been
repeatedly targeted by Israel, which has launched 15 aerial attacks on Syria
this year alone and regularly accuses Iran of using the airport to send weapons
shipments to its allies.
Syrian state
media had reported that a volley of missiles was fired from the
Israeli-occupied Golan Heights at around 4:20am (0120 GMT) on Friday.
Syria’s ally
Russia strongly condemned “the provocative Israeli attack against essential
civilian infrastructure”.
A spokesperson
for Russia’s foreign ministry called such attacks “an absolutely unacceptable
violation of international norms.”
Syrian Foreign
Minister Faisal Mekdad and his Iranian counterpart Hossein Amir-Abdollahian
spoke by phone and also condemned the attack, SANA reported.
Syria “will
defend itself by all legitimate means” against Israeli attacks, Mekdad said.
On May 20,
Israeli surface-to-surface missiles from the Golan Heights killed three people
near Damascus, state media said at the time, quoting a military source. Those strikes
targeted Iranian positions and weapon depots near Damascus, starting a fire
near one of the positions close to the airport, the Syrian Observatory for
Human Rights said.
While Israel
rarely comments on individual strikes, it has acknowledged carrying out
hundreds in Syria, which Israel’s military says is necessary to prevent its
arch-foe Iran from gaining a foothold on its doorstep.
The conflict in
Syria started with the brutal repression of peaceful protests and escalated to
pull in foreign powers and global extremists.
The war has
killed nearly half a million people and forced around half of the country’s
pre-war population from their homes.
Russia’s military
intervention in 2015 helped turn the war in favor of Syria’s President Bashar
Al-Assad. Moscow maintains military bases in the country.
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