An Israeli air strike targeted the international airport in the city of Aleppo, in northern Syria, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights announced, just 24 hours after identical raids targeting the same airport and that of the Syrian capital, Damascus.

“An Israeli airstrike from the direction of the sea hit the Aleppo airport,” Rami Abdel Rahman, the director of the British-based NGO, which relies on a wide network of sources in the war-torn country, told AFP.

Syrian state media confirmed the strike, with state television referring to an “Israeli attack targeting the international airport in Aleppo”.

On Thursday, Israeli strikes were already recorded against the same airport and the one in Damascus, temporarily shutting them down, according to Syrian official media.

Yesterday’s strikes came hours after the airport in Aleppo reopened, putting it out of business again, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The results of the raid are being “assessed”, state news agency SANA reported.

On Tuesday, for the first time since the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, the Israeli military announced that it had opened fire with mortars on Syria from the Golan Heights, returning “fire” against the area, which holds the Israel since 1967.

Israel has launched hundreds of air strikes on Syrian territory since the outbreak of war in that country in 2011.

Its air force mainly targets forces backed by Iran and Lebanon’s Shiite Hezbollah movement, allies of Damascus and sworn enemies of Israel, as well as Syrian army positions.

The airports of Damascus and Aleppo have been repeatedly bombed.

Israel rarely comments on the strikes it unleashes on Syria in public, however it declares that it will not allow Iran to build a bridgehead or expand its bases at its gates.