Aleppo Int’l Airport out of service following Israeli airstrike

According to Syrian media, quoting a military source, the Israeli airstrike was carried out early Tuesday from the direction of the Mediterranean Sea, west of the coastal city of Latakia.

The military source added that the attack only caused material damage to the runway of Aleppo International Airport, taking the airport out of service.

Syrian media had earlier said that the country’s air defenses intercepted Israeli missiles coming from the direction of the Mediterranean, shooting down a number of them.

The new Israeli strike comes as the international airport in Aleppo is one of the main portals of entry for foreign airplanes carrying humanitarian aid to the victims of the country’s recent devastating earthquake.

The Israeli act of aggression followed another strike earlier in February when the regime's aircraft hit the Syrian capital and areas around it, especially a number of residential buildings in Kafr Sousa neighborhood in central Damascus. Tal al-Masih near the city of Shahba, north of al-Suwayda in southwestern Syria was another target of that attack.

Syria's Health Ministry said five people were killed in the strike, including one soldier, while fifteen others were wounded, some of them critically. The regime frequently violates Syrian sovereignty by targeting military positions inside the country, especially those of Hezbollah resistance movement, which has played a key role in helping the Syrian army in its fight against foreign-backed terrorists.

The Tel Aviv regime has been a main supporter of terrorist groups that have battled the government of President Bashar al-Assad since the foreign-backed militancy erupted in Syria in early 2011.

Syria has repeatedly complained to the UN over Israeli assaults, urging the Security Council to take action against Tel Aviv’s crimes. The calls have, however, fallen on deaf ears.