Many planes land in Aleppo to supply the people in Syria with relief supplies after the severe earthquake. However, air traffic there has now been paralysed. The reason for this is an Israeli air strike.
Aleppo airport in northern Syria has been shut down after an Israeli airstrike. "At 2:07 a.m. (00:07 GMT) the Israeli enemy launched an airstrike from the Mediterranean Sea west of Latakia, targeting Aleppo International Airport," the official Sana news agency reported, citing a military source. There was property damage that led to the closure of the airport and all flights were canceled, it said. There was initially no information about injuries.
Israel has flown hundreds of airstrikes in Syrian government-controlled areas in the neighboring country in recent years. The attacks targeted positions of the Syrian army and the Islamist Hezbollah, which is allied with Iran. Israel rarely comments on the attacks, but regularly says it will not accept Iran extending its influence to Israel's borders.
More than 80 planes carrying aid landed at Aleppo airport last month, an official with the Syrian Ministry of Transport said. No more relief planes would be able to land until the damage is repaired, he added.
Aleppo was hit hard by the severe earthquake in the Turkish-Syrian border area. A month after the severe natural disaster, aid workers said there are still bodies under the rubble in Syria. "The cameras have been removed, but the region is still littered with rubble with people still lying under it," said Johan Mooij, Syria mission director at children's charity World Vision. The relief measures were "far from enough" to reduce the suffering of the affected families and children.
On February 6, two earthquakes of magnitude 7.7 and 7.6 shook southeast Turkey and northwest Syria. A total of more than 50,000 fatalities have been reported so far. A storm in Syria worsened the situation, especially for those sheltered in tents. Dozens of tents were blown through the air, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported.
