Israeli Air Force F-35 fighter jets fly over the Mediterranean Sea during an aerial show as part of the celebrations for Israel’s Independence Day marking the 70th anniversary of the creation of the state, in Tel Aviv, Israel, on April 19, 2018. Photo: Reuters/Amir Cohen/File Photo

A Tuesday strike on Aleppo’s airport which the Syrian government blamed on Israel is a signal to Damascus that its tolerance of Iran’s support of terrorist groups could lead to costly retribution, a senior Israeli parliamentarian said.

Ram Ben Barak, head of the Knesset’s foreign affairs and defense committee, pointedly did not attribute the strike to Israel in a radio interview with Hebrew-language media on Wednesday, but said it “caused certain planes to be unable to land, and also notified [Syrian President Bashar al-Assad] to take into account that if planes whose sole purpose is to encourage terrorism land here, then Syria’s international traffic capacity will probably also be damaged.”

Satellite images shared by ImageSat International following the Tuesday strike showed multiple sites of impact on the runway, which is “out of service and being repaired,” according to the Tel Aviv-based firm.

It was the second strike on the Aleppo airport attributed to Israel in under a week. Israeli strikes on August 31 also caused material damage to the airport, Syrian media alleged.

“In general,” explained Barak, who is a member of Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid’s centrist Yesh Atid party, “the strategy of the State of Israel is to thwart the Iranian attempt to build around us armed militias well-equipped with precision weapons, in order to deter us from acting against Iran or acting against such and such terrorist elements in the region.”

Iran backs several US-designated terrorist groups in the Middle East that are dedicated to confronting Israel, including Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and Hezbollah. The Israeli military has accused Iran of flying in weapons — including advanced rockets, surface-to-surface missiles, and anti-aircraft systems — to Syria that are then delivered to Hezbollah on the Lebanese border.

“This is the Iranian plan and they have been trying to implement it for many years,” Barak said. “Qasem Soleimani led it at the time, and we set ourselves the goal of thwarting it, and at the same time also signaling to the Syrians and Assad that his enabling of such a plan will probably harm him as well.”

Israel has ramped up its targeting of Syrian airports in a bid to counter Iran’s increased use of aerial weapons transfers to its nearby allies, including Hezbollah, according to regional diplomatic and intelligence sources who spoke to Reuters last week.

Israeli leaders have repeatedly pledged to prevent Iran and its proxy Hezbollah — both of which came to the aid of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad after his country devolved into internal conflict more than a decade ago — from entrenching themselves in Syria. The Israeli military has confirmed carrying out hundreds of strikes there to that end.

Last week, the London-based Arabic paper Asharq al-Awsat reported that Russia called on Iranian militants to withdraw from positions in central and western Syria in order to avoid Israeli strikes.