Israeli attack puts Damascus airport out of service, Syria says

Live updates: Follow the latest news on Israel-Gaza

An Israeli missile attack put Damascus International Airport out of service on Sunday, Syrian state media said.

Israeli missiles from the Golan Heights hit Syria's biggest civilian airport, news agency Sana said, citing but not naming a military official.

The Syrian army said its air defences intercepted Israeli missiles fired from the Golan Heights. The extent of the damage was not revealed.

Attacks also hit areas in the Damascus countryside, causing damage, but there were no reports of casualties.

Flights scheduled to arrive in Damascus were being diverted to Latakia and Aleppo, Al Watan newspaper reported.

Israel typically carries out air strikes against targets in Syria, but possesses a ground-based multiple launch rocket system capable of firing cruise missiles with a 250 kilometre range.

Israel has struck airports in Damascus and Aleppo several times since the start of the war in Gaza on October 7.

Strikes also hit parts of western Syria after rocket fire landed on the Israeli-occupied Syrian Golan Heights.

The latest attacks came only hours after flights at the airport had resumed following a month-long shutdown caused by a previous Israeli strike, the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said.

Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes on targets inside government-controlled parts of Syria in recent years.

The latest attack comes five days after Israel launched aerial strikes from the Golan Heights on outposts near Damascus, with no one injured.

Syrian village shelled by government forces

On Sunday, a paramedic group and relatives of the victims said Syrian government forces had shelled a north-western village, killing at least 10 people, including seven children, as they picked olives.

The shelling of Qawqafeen in Idlib province on Saturday is the latest breach of a truce reached in March 2020 between Russia and Turkey, who back rival sides in Syria’s 12-year civil war that has killed half a million people.

Syrian government officials have not commented on the strike.

Hundreds of people have been killed or wounded in breaches of a truce that ended a Russian-backed government offensive on north-western Idlib province, the last major rebel stronghold in Syria.

The shelling of the farm was reported by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and the opposition’s Syrian Civil Defence, also known as White Helmets.

The White Helmets said it treated one woman who was wounded and handed over bodies to their families.