At around 5.25 in the morning on Sunday, October 22, 2023, two men with a contested civilian status, Ammar Iyad Abu Issa and Atef Fadel Naser, were the victims of an alleged Israeli airstrike on Damascus airport, Syria.

Several sources reported that Atef Fadel Naser was injured by the strike that killed Ammar Iyad Abu Issa. In contrast, others, including the Damascus Voice, claimed they were both killed, sharing the image of both men with a black ribbon. One of the victims was a middle-aged man with a round face, thick nose, and a gray mustache, while another was a young man with an elongated face, a fair complexion, big eyes, full lips, and a long beard.

The civilian status of both victims is contested. At least four sources affirmed the two victims were civilians. User @abualisar18 posted on Twitter/X that the Syrian Ministry of Transport mourned the death of the “civil worker” Ammar Iyad Abu Issa, who reportedly worked at the Damascus airport’s Meteorology department. SANA news quoted the statement by a military source saying that both casualties were civil workers at the airport.

However, at least two different sources identified the victims as militants of “Assad’s gangs” referring to the Syrian regime forces. In particular, Twitter/X user @ahmad16067 alleged that “both Lieutenant Atef Fadel Nasr and his assistant Ammar Iyad Abu Issa were killed.”

In addition to the casualties, the airstrike reportedly caused damage to the airport’s runway, as sources including SANA said, causing the airport to be “temporarily out of service”.

Where the sources identified the belligerent, all of them named Israeli forces as the perpetrators of the attack.

According to the news agency SANA quoting the statement by a military source, the Israeli military allegedly fired waves of missiles from the direction of the Mediterranean Sea west of Lattakia and from the direction of the Syrian Golan in the direction of Damascus and Aleppo international airports.