BEIRUT, Aug. 18 -- The families of southern Lebanon have learned, over the course of this summer, to measure safety in terms of intervals: the silence between one strike and the next, and how long it lasts.

Between August 5 and 16, UN peacekeepers counted an average of 137 projectiles fired each day across the south. On Saturday, that number reached 208. On Sunday, 185 more. The ceasefire that the United States brokered on June 26 was technically still in effect. The killing was not.

Al Jazeera reported that the death toll in Lebanon has climbed to 4,346 since March 2, when a new cycle of Israeli air operations began in earnest. Eleven people died in separate Israeli air raids on Saturday alone. "Civilians are once again paying the high...