Syria Begins Work to Repair ‘Sizeable Damage’ to Airport After Israel Attack

Flights will resume only after repairs are completed

Damascus International Airport remains closed after a major Israeli missile attack on Friday morning, and early repair work has begun with the nation assessing the extent of the damage.

It might take awhile, though specific estimates have not been made public, as officials reported “sizeable damage” to the northern runway. This was the only runway which had been opened for months, as the other was already damaged in previous Israel attacks.

Damage was also reported to the airport lobby and navigation lighting. One civilian was reported wounded in thew pre-dawn attack.

Israel is declining comment, largely, in keeping with a standard that they only talk about strikes that are specific retaliations for something, whereas this was seemingly just Israel attacking for the sake of attacking.

Israeli media, however, latched on to this story and spun it was something to do with Iran weapons smuggling, as that’s almost always the pretext for Israeli attacks. The strikes are said in part to prevent GPS equipment from reaching Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Russia was critical of the Israeli attack, terming strikes on a civilian airport as outside the norms of international law. The Syrian FM reported Iran had also condemned the attack.

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.