Syria’s envoy to the United Nations warned Tuesday that if the world body did not halt Israeli strikes on his country Syria would retaliate with an attack on Ben Gurion International Airport outside Tel Aviv.
Speaking at the UN Security Council after a series of Israeli airstrikes on Sunday and Monday Bashar Jaafari said Israel was only able to act freely in Syria because it had the backing of the US UK and France in the Security Council.
Syrian state media Sana quoted Jaafari as saying that if the UN Security Council didn’t adopt measures to stop Israel “Syria would practice its legitimate right of self-defense and respond to the Israeli aggression on Damascus International Airport in the same way on the Tel Aviv airport.”
“Isn’t it time now for the UN Security council to stop the repeated Israeli aggressions on the Syrian Arab republic territories” Jaafari said.
Israel has repeatedly hit targets inside Syria in recent years. Syria has rarely responded.
On Sunday Israel reportedly conducted a missile attack on Iranian targets in Syria. Hours later in the predawn hours of Monday morning the Israeli occupation forces launched strikes on targets near Damascus and on the Syrian air defense forces.
Satellite images released by an Israeli firm on Tuesday appeared to show extensive damage at Damascus International Airport.
Twenty-one people were killed in the Israeli raids in Syria early on Monday a Britain-based Syrian war monitor said earlier on Tuesday.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights initially reported the death toll from the Israeli strikes to be 11. But on Tuesday the war monitor said the number had risen to 21 making it one of the deadliest attacks by Israel in Syria.
