Israel launches deadly air raid on Aleppo airport

Israeli air raids have targeted the international airport in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo early on Tuesday, killing one Syrian soldier and putting the airport out of commission, Syria’s state media said.

Citing a military official, the state news agency SANA said two civilians and five other Syrian soldiers were wounded.

There was no immediate statement from Israeli authorities to The Associated Press news agency on the attacks.

The airport has been a key channel for the flow of aid into the country after an earthquake hit Turkey and Syria on February 6, killing more than 50,000 people, including more than 6,000 in Syria.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a United Kingdom-based opposition war monitor, said the attack targeted a munitions depot by the airport. It also reported Israeli raids at a military airport in the Aleppo countryside, though Syrian state media did not report on the matter.

In March, Israel struck Aleppo’s airport on two different occasions and put it out of commission for several days.

Israel, which has promised to stop Iranian entrenchment in neighbouring countries, has carried out hundreds of attacks on government-controlled parts of neighbouring Syria in recent years but rarely acknowledges them.

SANA reported on Saturday that Israeli air raids over Homs wounded three civilians and that a civilian fuel station caught fire. SOHR said the missiles destroyed an ammunition depot belonging to the Iran-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah at a military airport in the countryside of Homs.

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