Hezbollah conducted a lot of reconstruction work after the 2006 war, financed by Iran and using its construction wing. The project was directed by Sayyed Hashem Safieddine, a Hezbollah leader killed by Israel 11 days after Nasrallah, in a sign of the bigger challenges it will face this time round.

Dwarfed by destruction, Imad Shami, 60, a Lebanese barber, stoops to feed an injured cat: an absurd snapshot of life against the graveyard of obliterated buildings around him.The smashed landscape of the heavily populated Dahiyeh suburb of Beirut – largely under the control of Hezbollah – shows it was the focus of Israel’s ferocious bombardment.

With its longtime leaders dead, its military capabilities vastly diminished, and its fighters forced to retreat from southern Lebanon, Hezbollah emerges from its war with Israel facing unprecedented challenges.