In the silence of the Italian media, last Wednesday, Israel launched missiles on the international airport of Aleppo putting it out of service. The attack, the second this month, reportedly destroyed a suspected underground weapons cache attached to the nearby Nairab airport used by Iranian-backed militias.
Israel has carried out hundreds of attacks against Syria since the civil war broke out in Syria in 2011, mainly targeting positions of the Syrian army and its Iranian allies and Hezbollah.
Pro-Iranian militias have great influence in Syria's northern Aleppo province, where, after providing ground support to the army in its recapture of rebel-held districts of the city in 2016, they maintain several bases and support local paramilitary groups operating on the territory.
Israel, for its part, said: "we do not comment on news from foreign media".
In the Israeli raid of 7 March, three people were killed at the airport and air traffic blocked, including relief flights engaged in the earthquake areas (photo). The airport reopened three days later. Local media reported that Israel "carried out an air strike from the direction of the Mediterranean Sea, west of Latakia, targeting Aleppo International Airport"1. The Syrian transport ministry claimed damage to the runway and airport equipment, forcing all flights to be diverted to Damascus or Latakia on the Mediterranean coast.
Israel has attacked airports in Aleppo and Damascus several times in recent years.
On February 19, Israeli airstrikes targeted residential areas in Damascus, killing at least five people and wounding 15.
On January 2, the Syrian army said Israel fired missiles at the capital's international airport, putting it out of action and killing two soldiers.
The Jordanian parliament on Wednesday unanimously approved a recommendation to expel the Israeli ambassador from Amman, in protest against Israeli minister Bezalel Smotrich's racist statements on Palestine and Jordan. According to the latter, we cannot speak of "Palestinians" because there is no "Palestinian people". According to Smotrich, leader of the ultra-nationalist far-right Religious Zionist party and a key figure in the ruling coalition, the Palestinian people "it's fiction" devised a century ago to fight against the Zionist movement: "This is the truth - he concluded - and the Elysée and the White House must also take note of it”2.
China condemned the statements of the minister who through the spokesman of the minister of foreign affairs, Wang Wenbin, commented: “the Israeli official is wrong and acting irresponsibly, denying the existence of the Palestinian people and adopting a 'map of Israel' that includes Jordan and occupied Palestine”3.
Josep Borrell, High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, also condemned Smotrich's words stating that “it is wrong, disrespectful, dangerous and counterproductive”, and called on the government led by Benjamin Netanyahu to “deny these words and start working to reduce tensions”.
1,2 theguardian.com
Photo: SANA
