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Damascus Threatens to Strike Tel Aviv Airport in Retaliation to Israeli Strikes

What is believed to be guided missiles are seen in the sky during in an attack in Damascus, Syria, January 21, 2019. (Reuters)
What is believed to be guided missiles are seen in the sky during in an attack in Damascus, Syria, January 21, 2019. (Reuters)
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Damascus Threatens to Strike Tel Aviv Airport in Retaliation to Israeli Strikes

What is believed to be guided missiles are seen in the sky during in an attack in Damascus, Syria, January 21, 2019. (Reuters)
What is believed to be guided missiles are seen in the sky during in an attack in Damascus, Syria, January 21, 2019. (Reuters)

The Syrian regime’s ambassador to the United Nations, Bashar al-Jaafari, warned Tuesday that Damascus could attack Tel Aviv’s airport in retaliation to Israeli strikes against Syria.

He told a Security Council briefing on the Middle East: “If the council does not take measures to stop repeated Israeli assaults against Syrian territories, then Syria will practice its legitimate right of self-defense and respond to the aggression against Damascus International Airport in kind by attacking Tel Aviv airport.”

Moreover, he criticized a report by Nickolay Mladenov, Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, for deliberately ignoring daily Israeli crimes against residents of the occupied Golan Heights.

“Isn’t it time that the Security Council take the necessary measures to stop the repeated Israeli attacks against Syria?” he asked.

These attacks would not have taken place had the council implemented its resolutions and had member states not shown unlimited support for Israel, which has only encouraged its criminality, said Jaafari.

Israel has carried out several attacks against Iranian and Hezbollah targets since the eruption of the Syrian conflict in 2011.

Israel struck in Syria early on Monday, the latest salvo in its increasingly open assault on Iran’s presence there, shaking the night sky over Damascus with an hour of loud explosions in a second consecutive night of military action.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the air raid had mostly targeted Iranian forces, but also hit Syrians helping them. “We will strike at anyone who tries to harm us,” he said.

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Nearly 30% of Syrians Want to Go Home, up from Almost Zero, UN Refugee Chief Says

This handout picture released by the official Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) shows Syria's de factor leader Ahmed al-Sharaa (R) receiving United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi (L) in Damascus on January 25, 2025. (SANA / AFP)
This handout picture released by the official Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) shows Syria's de factor leader Ahmed al-Sharaa (R) receiving United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi (L) in Damascus on January 25, 2025. (SANA / AFP)
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Nearly 30% of Syrians Want to Go Home, up from Almost Zero, UN Refugee Chief Says

This handout picture released by the official Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) shows Syria's de factor leader Ahmed al-Sharaa (R) receiving United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi (L) in Damascus on January 25, 2025. (SANA / AFP)
This handout picture released by the official Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) shows Syria's de factor leader Ahmed al-Sharaa (R) receiving United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi (L) in Damascus on January 25, 2025. (SANA / AFP)

Almost 30% of the millions of Syrian refugees living in Middle Eastern countries want to return home in the next year, following the fall of President Bashar al-Assad, up from almost none last year, the head of the UN's refugee agency said.

The shift is based on an assessment done by the UN in January, weeks after Assad was ousted by opposition factions, bringing an abrupt end to a 13-year civil war that had created one of the biggest refugee crises of modern times.

"We have seen the needle move, finally, after years of decline," Filippo Grandi told a small group of reporters in Damascus, after holding meetings with the Syria's new ruling administration.

The number of Syrians wishing to return "had reached almost zero. It's now nearly 30% in the space of a few weeks. There is a message there, which I think is very important, must be listened to and must be acted upon," he said.

Around 200,000 Syrian refugees have already returned since Assad fell, he said, in addition to around 300,000 who fled back to Syria from Lebanon during the Hezbollah-Israel war in September and October, most of whom are thought to have stayed.

Returning the roughly 6 million Syrians who fled abroad and the millions who became internally displaced has been a main aim of Syria's new administration.

But the civil war has left large parts of many major cities in ruins, services decrepit and the vast majority of the population living in poverty. Syria remains under a harsh Western sanctions regime that effectively cuts off its formal economy from the rest of the world.

To aid Syrians returning, many of whom often sell all their belongings to pay for the trip, UN agencies are providing some cash aid for transportation and will help with food and to reconstruct at least parts of broken homes, Grandi said.

More aid is needed from donors, Grandi said, and sanctions should be reconsidered. He did not comment directly on an announcement on Friday by the new US administration of a broad suspension of foreign aid programs.

"If sanctions are lifted, this will improve the conditions in the places where people return," he said.

The US earlier this month provided a six-month sanctions exemption for some sectors, including energy, but Syria's new leaders say much more relief is needed.

Grandi said refugees were responding to a political process that the new administration's leader Ahmed al-Sharaa has committed to, aimed at producing a governing authority by March 1 that better represents Syria's diversity.

"Refugees are listening to what he's saying, to what his people are saying, and that's why I think many people decided to go back," Grandi said. "But many more will come if these things continue to be positive."