US Report Confirms Israel's Targeting of Damascus Int'l Airport Runway

An American report has shown that the latest round of Israeli airstrikes on Syria damaged a landing runway at Damascus International Airport. (Reuters file photo)
An American report has shown that the latest round of Israeli airstrikes on Syria damaged a landing runway at Damascus International Airport. (Reuters file photo)
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US Report Confirms Israel's Targeting of Damascus Int'l Airport Runway

An American report has shown that the latest round of Israeli airstrikes on Syria damaged a landing runway at Damascus International Airport. (Reuters file photo)
An American report has shown that the latest round of Israeli airstrikes on Syria damaged a landing runway at Damascus International Airport. (Reuters file photo)

An American report has shown that the latest round of Israeli airstrikes on Syria damaged a landing runway at Damascus International Airport.

This confirmed a Russian statement that the attack targeted the airport, not the al-Quneitra region as Damascus had announced.

Satellite images from Capella Space shared on Twitter by Aurora Intel clearly show that the runway at the airport was cratered in three spots spaced perfectly about 600 meters.

The War Zone website said: “Currently, the southern part of Damascus International Airport is closed to airline traffic as it undergoes refurbishment.

“Exactly why this particular runway was targeted is unclear, therefore, especially as the other runway remains active and is reportedly used to host flights bringing material to support Iranian military activities in the country”.

According to Rear Adm. Vadim Kulit, deputy head of the Russian Center for the Reconciliation of Warring Parties in Syria, “On December 16, from 1:51 to 1:59, four Israeli Air Force F-16 tactical fighters from the airspace over the Golan Heights struck with eight cruise missiles at targets near the Damascus International Airport.”

The Syrian state news agency SANA meanwhile cited an unnamed military source as saying, “the Israeli enemy carried out an aerial aggression,” adding that the Israeli missiles were fired from airspace over the Golan Heights.

SANA repeated the claim that Syrian air defenses shot down most of the cruise missiles.

Syrian Observatory for Human Rights sources have confirmed that Israeli missiles hit Lebanese Hezbollah and Iran-backed militias positions and warehouses in the vicinity of Deir Ali area in the southern Damascus countryside, at the Daraa-Damascus countryside-Al-Suweida triangle, destroying the target sites.

However, no casualties have been reported until now.

The Israel attacks also hit an air defense post, south of Al-Shahba area in Al-Sweida, killing at least one regime soldier and wounding others, and causing material damage in the area.

Moreover, Observatory sources have denied all reports that the attack targeted the vicinity of Damascus International Airport.



UN Human Rights Office: 798 People Killed while Receiving Aid in Gaza

Palestinians carry containers for water at a camp for the displaced in Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip, Monday, July 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Palestinians carry containers for water at a camp for the displaced in Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip, Monday, July 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
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UN Human Rights Office: 798 People Killed while Receiving Aid in Gaza

Palestinians carry containers for water at a camp for the displaced in Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip, Monday, July 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Palestinians carry containers for water at a camp for the displaced in Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip, Monday, July 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

The UN human rights office said on Friday that it had recorded at least 798 killings both at aid points run by the US- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) and near humanitarian convoys run by other relief groups, including the UN.

The GHF uses private US security and logistics companies to get supplies into Gaza, largely bypassing a UN-led system that Israel says had let militants divert aid.

The United Nations has called the plan "inherently unsafe" and a violation of humanitarian impartiality rules.

"Up until the seventh of July, we've recorded now 798 killings, including 615 in the vicinity of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation sites, and 183 presumably on the route of aid convoys," OHCHR spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani told reporters in Geneva, according to Reuters.

The GHF began distributing food packages in Gaza at the end of May and has repeatedly denied that incidents had occurred at its sites.