Israel launches deadly air raid on Aleppo airport: media

The attack, which shut down the international airport, is believed to have killed at least one person and injured several more.

Israeli airstrikes targeted the international airport in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo early Tuesday, killing a Syrian soldier and decommissioning the airport, Syrian state media said.

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

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

The airport has been an important conduit for the flow of aid to the country following an earthquake that 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 UK-based opposition war watcher, said the attack targeted an ammunition depot near the airport. It also reported Israeli raids on a military airfield in rural Aleppo, though Syrian state media did not report it.

In March, Israel attacked Aleppo airport on two separate occasions and shut it down for several days.

Israel, which has promised to end Iran’s entrenchment in neighboring countries, has carried out hundreds of attacks on government-controlled parts of neighboring Syria in recent years, but rarely acknowledges them.

SANA reported on Saturday that Israeli airstrikes on Homs injured three civilians and that a civilian gas station caught fire. SOHR said the missiles destroyed an ammunition depot belonging to the Iranian-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah at a military airport in rural Homs.