Old Image Misleadingly Shared as a Recent Fire Near the Damascus International Airport
The Claim
The image shows a fire that broke out recently near Damascus International Airport after an Israeli airstrike.
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Emerging story
Social media users across the MENA region have circulated a picture claiming it depicts a fire that broke up near Damascus International Airport because of an Israeli airstrike.
Misbar’s Analysis
Misbar has investigated the claim and found it to be misleading. The image is old. It shows fire and smoke rising from the Mazzeh airbase in the Damascus' western Mazzeh neighborhood, Syria, on September 2, 2018.
The image was taken by the photographer Ammar Safarjalani for the Chinese Xinhua News Agency.
The Syrian army denied reports that an Israeli missile attack targeted a Syrian airbase west of Damascus early Sunday, saying a short circuit caused an explosion in an arms depot near the airbase.
A Fire at the Mazzeh Airbase in 2018
A fire broke out at the Mazzeh airbase in the Damascus' western Mazzeh neighborhood, Syria, on September 2, 2018. Some Syrian media reported that the fire broke out after an Israeli airstrike on the military base.
Meanwhile, the Syrian army denied reports that a series of blasts at a military airport near Damascus on Sunday were from Israeli airstrikes and said an explosion at the munitions dump caused a series of loud blasts near the airbase.
Other reports mentioned that an electrical fault caused the blast.
Israeli Airstrikes Near Damascus International Airport
A fire broke out near Damascus International Airport on Friday night, May 20, 2022, which Syrian media said was the result of an Israeli airstrike.
The state-run news agency SANA said that Syrian air defenses interrupted “hostile targets” in the skies in the Damascus countryside.
SANA confirmed that three people were martyred in an Israeli aggression Friday on some points to the south of Damascus. And noted that, at nearly 11 PM on Friday, May 20, 2022, Israeli forces carried out “aggression with surface-to-surface missiles from the direction of the occupied Syrian Golan, targeting some points south of Damascus as the Army air defenses intercepted the missiles.”
According to the Washington Post, the last attack was on May 13, when Israeli missiles struck the town of Masyaf in the Hama countryside killing five people.
Translated by Khadija Boufous
