Inside the city of grief hit hardest by Israel strikes on southern Lebanon

A procession commemorating Ashura in the city of Nabatieh, southern Lebanon, on Thursday. Photograph: Alessio Mamo/The Guardian

As the procession wound its way through mounds of rubble, the crowd chanted and beat their chests, their lamentations echoed by the dull thud of shelling in the foothills just beyond the city.

“This is the tragedy of Karbala, O Imam Hussein, look. This is the tragedy of Karbala,” the crowd cried in the opening procession of Ashura, in the city of Nabatieh, southern Lebanon.