Illustrative photo of an Israeli F-15 Eagle fighter jet (Edi Israel/Flash90/File)
Early on September 17, five service members of the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) were killed when a new wave of Israeli strikes hit the Syrian capital, Damascus.
In a statement to the official Syrian Arab News Agency, a source in the SAA said that Israeli jets launched the strikes from the direction of Lake Tiberias in northern Israel, targeting Damascus International Airport and several other positions to the south of the capital.
According to the unnamed source, Syrian air defenses intercepted several Israeli missiles. Still, five service members were killed and material losses were sustained.
This was the second Israeli attack to target Damascus International Airport in less than a month. On August 31, a wave of strikes destroyed civilian navigation systems at the airport. On the very same day, the main runway of Aleppo International Airport in northern Syria was hit along with the airport’s navigation systems.
Aleppo airport was attacked by Israel again on September 6. This time three strikes hit the runway, placing the airport out of service for three days.
Israel’s repeated attacks on Syrian airports are reportedly meant to disturb Iranian weapons shipments meant for Hezbollah in Lebanon. Just a few months ago, Israel accused Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps of smuggling weapons to Syria aboard civilian airliners.
Syria and its allies refrained from responding to recent Israeli attacks on Damascus and Aleppo airports, likely to avoid a full-blown military confrontation with Tel Aviv.
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