As the mourners advanced through heaps of debris, the group chanted and struck their chests, their laments accompanied by the distant boom of artillery in the hills just outside the city.

"This embodies the sorrow of Karbala, O Imam Hussein, see. This is the sorrow of Karbala," the participants intoned at the start of Ashura rites in Nabatieh, southern Lebanon.

The annual Ashura observance recalls the martyrdom of Imam Hussein at Karbala in 680 and stands today as a symbol of resistance to tyranny for Shia Muslims. In ordinary years the event draws up to 30,000 people who fill the streets with unified cries of grief.

This year the Karbala narrative gained fresh resonance because of the Hezbollah-Israel conflict, which claimed more than 3,900 lives in Lebanon, most of them Shia. Nabatieh suffered some of the heaviest bombing and much of the city was flattened.

On Wednesday the voices of grief were softened by mounds of soil and twisted metal cleared from roadways only two days earlier. Roughly 200 people could not fill the quiet that settled over the empty streets and broken buildings after 100 days of fighting.

Nabatieh was remembering its newest losses during this Ashura, the tears of worshippers reflecting a war that displaced most residents and killed many who could not flee.

Martyr posters lined the roads: at the entrance to neighboring Harouf a three-meter banner showed the faces of 50 young Hezbollah fighters killed in that village alone.

"This Ashura carries special weight for us. We have relived the Karbala battle daily throughout this war," said Ismail Yaghi, 50, at the ceremony. He glanced at posters of fallen young men displayed on mosque walls and printed on shirts and badges worn by attendees.

"Sadness fills our hearts yet we also feel pride in our martyrs. We believe death does not end a life; their eternal life has only begun," Yaghi added.

Residents had not planned to mark Ashura in Nabatieh this year; nearly all 80,000 inhabitants had been displaced by strikes and evacuation orders. A Monday ceasefire between the US and Iran unexpectedly halted the fighting and stopped Israeli forces poised to seize the city.

Civil defense teams quickly readied the site. Ambulance volunteers set aside medical kits, took up brooms to clear rubble from the central mosque, and hung black banners to cover holes left by an airstrike.

"We normally spend an entire month preparing for Ashura. This time we had only two days," said Mehdi Sadek, 45, head of the ambulance service, while stirring a large pot of onions and spices.

He paused as Israeli artillery shook the building and smoke rose above the hills surrounding Nabatieh.

Despite the truce, Israel and Hezbollah continued exchanges inside the so-called security zone comprising hundreds of square miles of southern Lebanon. Israeli troops remained just beyond Ali Taher hill on the city edge.

On Friday morning clashes intensified. Hezbollah fired on Israeli troops, killing four soldiers; Israel responded with airstrikes around and inside Nabatieh, killing 18 people and wounding 33.

"More people attended yesterday, but last night was difficult with heavy shelling," Sadek said. The Lebanese army had sealed entrances to the upper city and nearby villages after Israel targeted returning residents on Tuesday. Families fled the fresh violence, fearing the truce might fail like earlier ones.

"We hoped conditions would improve. We wanted a genuine ceasefire. We chose to hold Ashura here to give people a reason to return," Sadek said.

Despite the ceremony few residents had come back. A handful drove through to inspect homes then departed. The scene contrasted sharply with the November 2024 truce that ended the prior war, when crowds returned at once and began rebuilding.

Hussein Nahleh, 33, an engineer displaced to Beirut, said his house was destroyed yet he returned for Ashura and stayed with residents whose homes remained intact.

Next to Nahleh several men looked upward and pointed. High above, an Israeli drone circled, observing the gathering.

While mourners marched, civil defense teams recovered bodies from rubble. They had noted strike sites during the war and now used the pause to search previously unreachable areas. Not every zone was accessible; Israeli forces had shelled near ambulances on Tuesday as crews approached southern sites to fight a blaze.

"Here in Nabatieh the situation remains unchanged and even tougher. It is unclear whether a ceasefire truly exists," said Hussein Fakih, regional head of Nabatieh civil defense.

He paused for a phone call and returned visibly moved. "Please excuse me. I just learned our house was destroyed by Israeli strikes."