The daycare is closed. The homes are unkempt. Parts of the landscape are ashen from fires sparked by fallen Hezbollah rockets. Even after a tenuous Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire designed to let Israelis return to the north, the mood here is far from celebratory.

The bursts of violence — with no reports of serious casualties — reflected the uneasy nature of the ceasefire that otherwise appeared to hold as Lebanese troops began to deploy in parts of southern Lebanon.