Mehrabad Airport

Mehrabad International Airport (OIII) is Tehran's oldest and primary domestic airport, located 12 km west of the city centre. During the Iran-Israel war it became one of the conflict's most strategically contested infrastructure nodes. The IDF struck Mehrabad on Day 62 of the war alongside Bahram and Azmayesh airports, targeting military logistics corridors in a co-ordinated infrastructure strike on the ceasefire announcement day. Earlier, on Day 40, the Israeli Air Force destroyed an aircraft used by Ali Khamenei and senior officials at Mehrabad, directly targeting the leadership's aviation assets.

The airport's military significance extends beyond its passenger role. It houses aircraft servicing facilities and is linked to Iran's air-defence command network. By late April 2026, it had become one of two primary Iranian destinations for Russian Ilyushin Il-76 heavy transport flights delivering radar systems, electronic-warfare components, and aviation parts at high tempo. RFE/RL reported the flights alongside deliveries to Bandar Abbas; the Pentagon assessed both as sustaining Iran's operational military capacity after the February strikes.

Mehrabad sits in a civilian urban zone, which gave Israel's strikes political as well as military weight — infrastructure degradation against a facility embedded in a residential city. Its dual role as a civilian domestic airport and a military logistics hub makes it one of the conflict's most contested dual-use sites, and its continued operation as a Russian supply terminus confirms that Israeli strikes on Day 40 and Day 62 did not permanently disable it.