Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Oct 12: Israel pounded Syria’s two main airports on Thursday in the first such attack as Hamas and Israel traded heavy fire for a sixth day after hundreds of Hamas gunmen stormed across the Gaza border into Israel on Saturday and killed more than 1,000 civilians triggering fierce fighting.
Israeli aggression targets Damascus and Aleppo airports,” the state television reported on the messaging app Telegram, without providing additional details. All flights in and out of Syria have been cancelled, the reports added.
According to reports, Israel’s airstrikes hit runways of Syria’s airports in the already war-ravaged cities, activating the country’s air defence systems. Israeli strikes have repeatedly caused the grounding of flights at the airports in Aleppo and the capital Damascus, both of which are controlled by the government of war-torn Syria.
The latest strikes came as the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Israel, and hours after Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, in a telephone call with his Syrian counterpart Bashar al-Assad, called on Arab and Islamic countries to cooperate in confronting Israel.
During more than a decade of war in Syria, Israel has launched hundreds of air strikes on its northern neighbour, primarily targeting Iran-backed forces and Hezbollah fighters as well as Syrian army positions.
Israel rarely comments on individual strikes it carries out on Syria, but it has repeatedly said it would not allow its arch-foe Iran, which supports Assad’s government, to expand its footprint there. Iran, which backs Hamas, on Saturday celebrated Hamas’ assault on Israel, though it insisted it was not involved in it.
As the conflict intensified on the sixth day, Israeli Energy Minister Israel Katz vowed Thursday that his country would not allow basic resources or humanitarian aid into Gaza until Hamas released the people it kidnapped during its surprise weekend onslaught.
“Humanitarian aid to Gaza? No electric switch will be turned on, no water tap will be opened and no fuel truck will enter until the Israeli abductees are returned home,” he said in a statement. Around 150 Israelis, foreigners and dual nationals were kidnapped to the Gaza Strip by Hamas group as part of the Saturday attack that killed more than 1,200 people in Israeli towns and communities around the enclave.
Israel has in turn launched a withering air campaign against Hamas group in the blockaded Gaza Strip, killing around 1,200 people. In recent days Israel announced a “complete siege” on Gaza, cutting off water, fuel and electricity supplies. The Palestinian territory’s sole power plant shut down on Wednesday after running out of fuel.
Soon after the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu created a wartime Cabinet to oversee the fight to avenge the gruesome weekend attack. He vowed to “crush and destroy” Hamas. “Every Hamas member is a dead man,” he said in a televised address.
Over the last five days, Israeli warplanes have pummelled the blockaded Gaza strip with an intensity that its war-weary residents had never experienced. The airstrikes have killed over 1,354 Palestinians, according to Hamas ministry.
As Palestinians lined up outside bakeries on Thursday after spending the night in pitch darkness surrounded by the ruins of pulverised neighbourhoods, as Israel launched new airstrikes and said it was preparing for a possible ground invasion.
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman discussed the Palestinian-Israeli conflict on Wednesday, in the first telephone call between the two leaders since a China-brokered deal between Tehran and Riyadh to resume ties. Mr Raisi and the Saudi crown prince discussed the “need to end war crimes against Palestine,” Iranian state media said.
The number of U.S. citizens who have died in the Israel-Palestinian war has risen to at least 25, Antony Blinken said.
Palestinian residents of the city of Beit Lahiya in the northern region of the Gaza Strip said Thursday that Israeli planes dropped flyers warning them to evacuate their homes and to head to “known shelters.” “Anyone who is near Hamas terrorists will put their lives in danger,” the flyers said. “Adhering to IDF instructions will prevent you from being exposed to danger.”
The area had already been heavily struck by the time the flyers were dropped. Shelters in the Gaza Strip are not safe from airstrikes — the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees has seen 10 of its shelters struck since the start of the operation.
Palestinians living the pummelled Strip have said the military often has not alerted them before striking homes, or will alert them but not with enough time to evacuate before their homes are struck. Israeli defence officials have said they attempt to provide warning before strikes.