Syria's Aleppo Airport resumed flights days after the airstrike on the country's civil aviation chief in

Bassem Mansour told  pro-government radio station Sham FM  that flights to and from the airport in Syria's largest city would resume on Friday morning after repairs were completed. 

 

 The suspected Israeli airstrike early Tuesday left several craters on the airport's runway, satellite imagery analyzed by The Associated Press showed on Thursday. 

 

 

 

 Since the February 6 earthquake that struck Turkey and Syria and killed more than 50,000 people, including more than 6,000 in Syria, the airport has been a key entry point for planes bringing relief supplies to the war-torn country .Authorities said after the attack relief flights had been diverted to airports in Damascus and Latakia. 

 

 The  Aleppo airport attack comes after Israel attacked the airfield as part of an Israeli campaign to disrupt Iranian arms transfers to Syria for Iran-backed groups, including Lebanese Hezbollah. These attacks have continued despite ongoing political unrest in Israel and as Iran's nuclear program of weapons-grade uranium enrichment approaches. Negotiations to limit Iran's nuclear capacity have collapsed. 

 

 

 Israel has carried out hundreds of attacks on targets in government-controlled parts of Syria in recent years, including attacks on airports in Damascus and Aleppo, but the operations are rarely acknowledged or discussed.

 

 Aleppo Airport, like many others in the Middle East countries, is a dual-use facility that includes civil and military sides. Iran plays a key role in arming and supporting President Bashar Assad in his country's longstanding civil war. 

 

 

 On Wednesday, El-Mostafa Benlamlih, a UN official overseeing relief efforts in Syria, urged that "all practicable precautions" be taken to protect civilians and civilian property in the conduct of hostilities.