(Beirut) Damascus airport was again the target of Israeli airstrikes which knocked it out of action on Sunday, hours after flights resumed following a similar attack last month, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (OSDH).
“The Israeli air force carried out a new strike on Sunday afternoon targeting Damascus international airport […] putting it out of service again,” the Observatory reported.
The raid targeted the runways, according to the OSDH, which also reported sounds of explosions coming from a military airport in another sector of the capital.
Two airline ticket sales offices in the capital told AFP that flights from Damascus airport had resumed on Sunday. Local media also reported it, but authorities had not yet made an official announcement.
A military source said in a statement reproduced by the official Sana news agency that around 4:50 p.m. (8:50 a.m. Eastern Time), “the Zionist enemy carried out an air attack with missiles from the direction of Occupied Syrian Golan.”
The raid targeted “Damascus International Airport and certain points in the Damascus region,” putting the airport out of action and causing “material losses,” according to the agency.
Air defenses “destroyed most” of the missiles, the statement added.
Israel has carried out hundreds of airstrikes in neighboring Syria since the start of that country’s civil war in 2011, targeting Syrian army positions and groups affiliated with Iran, such as Lebanese Hezbollah.
These strikes have increased since the start on October 7 of the war between Israel and Palestinian Hamas in the Gaza Strip, triggered by a bloody attack by the Islamist movement on Israeli soil.
Raids on the airports of Damascus and Aleppo (north) on October 12 and 22 put the two infrastructures out of action.
Flights were diverted to Latakia airport on the west coast after the October 22 strikes.
Israel rarely comments on its attacks in Syria, but says it wants to prevent Iran, its sworn enemy, from establishing itself on its doorstep.