Anger and nervousness abound on the Lebanese-Israeli border as uncertainty surrounds Hezbollah’s next move

The funeral was over almost as soon as it began. Women did not linger in their lamentations but marched directly alongside the pallbearers to bury the body. An overzealous Hezbollah staff member did not wait for them to finish before pulling the picture of their fallen comrade off the martyr’s shrine, eager to pack up. Ten minutes later, the crowd dispersed, filtering out past the ad hoc army checkpoints set up for the occasion in the southern Beirut neighbourhood.

The funeral – a far cry from the usual 90-minute long ceremonies to honour the Shia militia’s deceased – was one of dozens held across Lebanon on Thursday. One after the other, Hezbollah had issued a steady stream of funerary announcements as the death toll mounted from the operation, probably Israeli in origin, that blew up pagers and walkie-talkies on Tuesday and Wednesday. In total, 42 were killed and almost 3,500 wounded by the blasts, according to Lebanon’s ministry of health.