Syria: Israel Launches Air Strike On Aleppo Airport

Facts

• On Monday, Israeli airstrikes targeted the international airport in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo, killing one Syrian soldier, state news media said on Tuesday.¹
• Syrian official media, citing a military official, reported that the airstrikes left two civilians and five Syrian soldiers injured and put the airport — a key channel for delivering aid to Syria following the February earthquake — out of service.²
• Meanwhile, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights claimed several Israeli airstrikes targeted the nearby Nayrab military airfield, which led to a fire at a munitions depot and caused "heavy material damage at both airports."³
• Syrian air defenses also reportedly intercepted Israeli missiles near Aleppo and shot down several of them.⁴
• Israel has allegedly carried out hundreds of attacks against what it says are Iran-linked targets in Syria, where Tehran's influence has grown since it began supporting Pres. Bashar al-Assad in the ongoing civil war.⁵
• The airstrikes come as Iranian Pres. Ebrahim Raisi is scheduled to go to Damascus for a "very important" two-day visit on Wednesday — the first since the start of the civil war in Syria in 2011.⁶

Sources: ¹Arab News, ²Associated Press, ³Mena – Gulf News, ⁴Reuters, ⁵Al Jazeera, and ⁶The Times of Israel.

Narratives

• Establishment-critical narrative, as provided by Foreign Affairs. Israel has been conducting airstrikes against suspected Iranian weapons transfers and personnel and its proxies in Syria for almost a decade. Though the strikes are part of a low-intensity conflict to slow Iran's growing entrenchment in Syria, the West has seemingly dropped its previous plan of diplomacy to allow Israel and other allies to, instead, use military force to settle its grievances with Tehran. This risky strategy underestimates the magnitude and repercussions of a military escalation.
• Pro-establishment narrative, as provided by AL. Syria is a conflict zone with many actors, all of which can cause this "shadow war" to go hot, and Iran — with its coordinated effort with Russia, which controls much of the Syrian airspace — risks pushing it over the edge. Israel has been clear that it will not permit Iran to freely move weapons and fighters through Syria if such activities threaten Israeli security, and is right to target Iranian assets in any of the countries into which Tehran has dug its tentacles.

Predictions