Israel hits Syria airports in response to mortar fire

Israeli strikes targeted Syria's two main airports on Thursday, Syrian state television said, in the first such attack since a Hamas assault on Israel at the weekend triggered fierce fighting.

"Israeli aggression targets Damascus and Aleppo airports," the state television reported on the messaging app Telegram, without providing additional details.

An Israeli army spokesman said that the strikes come in response to the firing of mortar shells from Syria at the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights several days ago.

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 come 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 reportedly killed more than 1,000 people.

They also come as U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken visits 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 neighbor, 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.