Israel Attacks Damascus Airport, Damages Runway

Israelis fired cruise missiles at runway

On Thursday, Israel attacked the Damascus International Airport, firing eight cruise missiles in the area. Casualty details are still unclear, but the airport runway has a big hole in it.

The Syrian Observatory, strangely, was quoted as denying any attacks on the airport or vicinity. How they explain the big hole is not certain, but the narrative apparently is not of an airport being attacked.

Israel hasn’t commented on the attack at all, and why they’d be going after the airport is very uncertain. Israel has long maintained neutrality in the Syrian War, but directly attacking a civilian airport in the capital really undercuts that claim.

In the past, attacks near the airport have targeted storage alleged to have weapons. Attacking that and attacking the runway of an airport are wildly different, however, and Israel risks a backlash with this targeting.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.