New Delhi, April 15 -- Women in black screamed in grief and toddlers sobbed uncontrollably, calling out for their dead fathers and uncles. Men in uniforms, pistols strapped to their belts, wept openly for their comrades at the funerals on Saturday for 13 Lebanese state security officers killed in an Israeli airstrike the day before.

In the past week, similar funeral scenes have played out hundreds of times across Lebanon as Israel intensified attacks against what it says are Iran-backed Hezbollah infrastructure and militants. The Israel-Hezbollah war - raging in the shadow of the larger U.S.-Israeli war on Iran - has so far killed more than 2,000 people in Lebanon and wounded thousands more.

But Friday's killing of so many state securit...