New Israeli missile strikes on 'Hezbollah arms depot' closes Damascus airport

Israeli missile strikes early Friday hit several targets south of the Syrian capital and forced Damascus International Airport to close.

Syrian regime media said planes from Damascus had been diverted to Aleppo airport, which follows the Israeli attack on an alleged Hezbollah site which left "one civilian injured".

Syrian state news agency, SANA, said all flights from Damascus airport had been suspended due to "technical" issues.

It follows confirmation by state media of Israeli strikes around Damascus with pro-regime newspaper Al-Watan saying a runway was damaged.

"At 4:20 a.m. (01:20am GMT)... the Israeli enemy carried out an aerial aggression by firing a volley of missiles from the occupied Golan Heights," SANA reported earlier in the day.

Syrian air defences intercepted most of the missiles but those that reached their target left at least one civilian wounded and caused material damage, SANA claimed.

Syrian regime media frequently claims defences shot down Israeli missiles but such reports cannot be independently verified.

Analysts say Syrian air defences have been mostly ineffective in Israeli air strikes and Russia usually orders the units to stand down.

According to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the Israeli raids hit arms depots belonging to the Lebanese Shia movement Hezbollah, as well as other Iran-backed groups near Damascus airport.

The monitor, which relies on a wide network of sources across Syria, said that at least three such positions were hit, leaving a number of people wounded.

Since war broke out in Syria in 2011, after the regime brutally suppressed peaceful protests, Israel has carried out hundreds of air strikes against its neighbour.

It has mostly targeted allied Iran-backed forces and Hezbollah fighters, as well as some Syrian regime positions.

While Israel rarely comments on individual strikes, it has acknowledged carrying out hundreds of them.

The Israeli military says the strikes are necessary to prevent its arch-foe Iran from gaining a foothold on its doorstep.

The war has killed nearly half a million people and forced around half of the country's pre-war population from their homes, mostly due to regime bombing and shelling.