The Israeli army carried out a missile strike on Damascus International Airport on Monday that killed four people, including two Syrian soldiers, according to a human rights monitor.
This is the second time in less than seven months that the Damascus airport, where Iranian-backed armed groups and Lebanese Hezbollah fighters are present, has been hit by Israel.
The attack — which occurred around 2:00 am (2300 GMT) — put the country’s main airport out of service, according to Syria’s state news agency SANA.
Israel carried out the strike with “barrages of missiles, targeting Damascus International Airport and its surroundings,” a military source told SANA, which reported that two Syrian soldiers were killed.
But the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights — which relies on a wide network of sources on the ground in Syria — said a total of four people had died in the early morning attack.
“Four fighters including two Syrian soldiers were killed” by the Israeli strike, Rami Abdul Rahman, head of the Observatory, told AFP.
The missiles also hit “positions for Hezbollah and pro-Iranian groups inside the airport and its surroundings, including a weapons warehouse,” Abdul Rahman said.
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.
While Israel rarely comments on specific reports of its attacks, it has repeatedly said it will not allow its archfoe Iran to gain a foothold in Syria.
Monday’s strike comes days after the head of the Israel Defense Forces Operations Directorate, Major General Oded Basiuk, presented the army’s operational outlook for 2023.
“We see that our course of action in Syria is an example of how continuous and persistent military action leads to shaping and influencing the entire region,” said tweets from the IDF on Basiuk’s presentation.
“We will not accept Hezbollah 2.0 in Syria.”
The airport is in a region south of Damascus where Iran-backed groups, including Hezbollah, regularly operate.
The last time the airport was out of service was in June 2022 — also after an Israeli missile strike.
The runway, control tower, three hangars, warehouses and reception rooms were badly damaged in that attack — forcing the airport to close for about two weeks and flights to be suspended.
Just as in Monday’s attack, the Observatory said at the time that the strikes had targeted nearby warehouses used as weapons depots by Iran and Hezbollah.
The conflict in Syria started with the brutal repression of peaceful protests and escalated to pull in foreign powers and global jihadists.
About half a million people have been killed, and the conflict has forced around half of the country’s pre-war population from their homes.
Though hostilities have largely abated in the last three years, sporadic fighting at times breaks out and jihadist attacks continue, mainly in the east of the country.
In 2022, Syria experienced its lowest yearly death toll since the conflict started over a decade ago.
At least 3,825 people died in Syria’s war in 2022, according to figures compiled by the Observatory — down from the previous year’s 3,882.
Among those killed in 2022 were 1,627 civilians, including 321 children, the Observatory said.
The Israeli army has killed two Palestinian men during a raid on a village near the city of Jenin in the northern occupied West Bank.
Mohammad Samer Hoshiyeh, 22, and Fouad Mohammad Abed, 25, were shot dead early on Monday in Kufr Dan, northwest of Jenin, the Palestinian Ministry of Health said.
At least three others were injured during the raid, including one in critical condition, the ministry added.
Confrontations and armed clashes broke out with Israeli forces late on Sunday night after they raided Kufr Dan to demolish the homes of two Palestinians killed in a shootout at an Israeli military checkpoint in Jenin that led to the killing of an Israeli soldier, Bar Falah, several months ago.
Ahmad Ayman Abed and Abdulrahman Hani Abed were shot dead at the Jalameh checkpoint, the main entry point between the northern occupied West Bank and Israel, on September 14.
Israeli forces said in a statement on that they had been conducting operations in Kufr Dan to demolish the homes of the two men, and said that they had been attacked with gunfire, rocks and firebombs.Hamas, the Palestinian group that rules Gaza, claimed Fouad Mohammed Abed as its member.
Similar images showed the demolition of a second home in the same way.
Such home demolitions are regarded as “collective punishment” by Palestinians and human rights organisations.
The large-scale Israeli military raid, which included special forces, began on Sunday night and continued until Monday morning.
The two men shot dead on Monday are the first Palestinians to be killed by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank this year, as a result of an ongoing Israeli military campaign of intensified raids and killings for almost a year.
The United Nations (UN) marked 2022 as the deadliest year for Palestinians in the West Bank in 16 years.
Israeli forces killed at least 171 Palestinians in the West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem in 2022, including more than 30 children. At least 9,000 others have been injured.
Civilians confronting the Israeli army during raids and uninvolved bystanders have been killed, as well as Palestinian fighters in targeted assassinations and during armed clashes.
Following a string of individual attacks carried out by Palestinians in Israel that began in March, the Israeli army launched a campaign called “Break the Wave” that has included near-daily raids, mass arrests and killings in the West Bank, with a focus on Jenin and Nablus, where Palestinian armed resistance has grown more organised over the past year.
Israeli forces conducted raids in several other cities in the occupied West Bank on Monday morning including Nablus, Salfit and Ramallah, arresting at least 15 Palestinian men, according to prisoner groups.
In Ramallah, the army raided the al-Amari refugee camp and arrested the brother of Nasser Abu Hmaid, a Palestinian prisoner who died in Israeli custody last month after suffering from cancer for over a year.
