Graph transformation systems (GTS) have been successfully proposed as a general, theoretically sound model for concurrency. Petri nets (PN), on the other side, are a central and intuitive formalism for concurrent or distributed systems, well supported by a number of analysis techniques/tools. Some PN classes have been shown to be instances of GTS. In this paper, we change perspective presenting an operational semantics of GTS in terms of Symmetric Nets, a well-known class of Coloured Petri nets featuring a structured syntax that outlines model symmetries. Some practical exploitations of the proposed operational semantics are discussed. In particular, a recently developed structural calculus for SN is used to validate graph rewriting rules in a symbolic way.An Operational Semantics of GTS the GreatSPN package [1]; an operational interleaving semantics for GTS is provided in a natural way building the state-transition system of a SN; a compact state-transition system -called symbolic reachability graph [7], in which states (markings) representing isomorphic graphs are folded, can be directly derived once an initial symbolic graph encoding is set; some recent advances in SN (symbolic) structural analysis [4], [3], implemented in the SNExpression tool (www.di.unito.it/~depierro/SNex) may be exploited to check some conditions ensuring rule well-definiteness, validate rules, and verify their potential concurrency; in particular, a fully automated calculus of symbolic structural relations in SN models may be profitably used. All these concepts are instantiated on a few, though significant, examples of graph rewriting rules, and a simple GTS. All the examples used in the paper are available in GreatSPN format at https://github.com/lgcapra/GTS-SN.The GTS formalization based on SN may be considered as an alternative to classical approaches, in particular the algebraic ones based on single and double pushout. The strengths of this new proposal are a more intuitive definition of derivations, and the availability of well established tools for the editing/validation/analysis of models. The relationship between SN rules and single/double pushout derivations, however, is not treated in this paper, and deserves further investigations.The balance of the paper is as follows: Section 2 introduces SN and related background notions; Section 3 presents the encoding of a GTS as a SN, and its operational semantics; symbolic structural conditions for rule well-definiteness are also set up; Section 4 shows an application of SN structural calculus for verifying rule concurrency in a GTS; finally, Section 5 contains the conclusion and describes ongoing work