Two vehicles, minutes apart, on one stretch of road. That is how Lebanon’s Health Ministry described the Israeli attacks on the highway to Beirut’s Rafic Hariri International Airport on Wednesday, 4 March 2026. Three people died and six were wounded.
“Two Israeli air strikes on the airport highway killed three people and wounded six,” the ministry said late that day. Lebanon’s National News Agency reported that an Israeli drone hit one vehicle on the highway, then a second car was struck shortly afterwards in the same area.
What Israel said it was targeting
The Israeli army said it had gone after two Hezbollah members in the Beirut area and gave no further detail. Israel’s Channel 12 said the intended target was a Hezbollah official responsible for “fire management”; the person’s name was not given. Lebanese media separately reported an Israeli air raid on Choueifat, south of the capital.
The army also said it had completed a “wave of attacks” elsewhere in Lebanon. According to its statement, it hit rocket-launching positions of Hezbollah below the Litani River, plus a drone-making workshop. Lebanese media reported that civilian facilities had been hit as well, while Israel maintained it was aiming at Hezbollah infrastructure.
A war that had reached Lebanon two days earlier
The highway strikes came on the third day of Israeli bombardment. Lebanon joined the wider regional war on Monday. Hezbollah opened fire on Israel after the killing of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in US-Israeli strikes over the weekend. It said it had aimed rockets and drones at a military site in the north of Israel. Israel then announced an “offensive campaign” against the group and struck Beirut’s southern suburbs and parts of the south.
On Wednesday Hezbollah stepped up its fire, claiming at least 15 attacks on Israeli positions, some reaching as far as Tel Aviv. Its leader vowed to keep fighting. Israeli forces pushed into several border towns. Israel’s army also reported sirens in Kiryat Shmona and in the Golan Heights after a drone launch from Lebanon.
Early on Thursday, the army issued fresh evacuation orders for a Beirut suburb, telling residents that strikes on sites it tied to Hezbollah were imminent.
Sources
- Three killed in Israeli strikes on Beirut airport highway
- 3 killed, 6 injured in Israeli airstrikes on Beirut airport road
