EVERY few minutes throughout yesterday, an Israeli army lorry pulled up outside a large nondescript building at Tel Aviv's Sde Dov airport, and drove off again a short while later with the body of one more newly identified Israeli soldier for burial.
As the first few dozen of 73 funerals got under way yesterday afternoon, Israel declared a day of national mourning to mark its worst military accident. A high level commission began investigating the cause of Tuesday night's collision between two Lebanon bound military helicopters.
And while initial findings were already pointing to human error rather than any technical deficiencies in the US made Sikorsky transport helicopters, a far more fundamental question, of how Israel can extricate itself from its long and bloody involvement in Lebanon, may take rather longer to answer.
By early yesterday, the bodies of all 65 soldiers and eight crew on the two helicopters had been taken to Sde Dov for identification all 73 families had received the dreaded news of the death of their relatives. School classes began with emotional discussions about the accident; the Knesset, cabinet and army general staffs all convened mourning sessions; flags were lowered to half mast; and cinemas, theatres and restaurants stayed shut.
As with the series of Islamic extremist bus bombings that hit Israel between 1994 and 1996, radio stations played sombre music all day, TV broadcast the tragic tales of the bereaved families, and newspapers carried banner headlines about "a nation united in grief".
"In this country," wrote a columnist in the Ma'ariv daily, "it seems that there are no more depths left to plumb. And yet, every time, something comes along to make a mockery of the previous lows."
In speeches at mourning ceremonies and funerals throughout the day, the Prime Minister, Mr Benjamin Netanyahu, noted that the dead included immigrants and veterans, Jews, Druse and Bedouin, men of all ages, "from all parts of the country, all sectors of society".
Apart from establishing the precise cause of the collision, the five strong panel will need to ascertain why two helicopters bound for different destinations in the eastern sector of the Israeli held security zone in south Lebanon needed to take off and fly together in conditions of fog and heavy rain.
They will also ask why the choppers were being kept circling when the crash occurred, in what was described yesterday as "waiting mode", for the green light to cross the international border; and why large quantities of ammunition and explosives were being transported together with the troops.
As for the wider question off how long Israel can tolerate the series of Lebanon related deaths, no military officials or politicians were willing to address seriously that issue amid the grief.
Israel seemed paralysed by the very magnitude of the loss, by the knowledge that, as one command her put it, "What Hizbullah does to us in three years has happened in an instant."
There is a further, terrible irony the Israeli army has only recently increased the use of helicopters to ferry soldiers in and out of the security zone, for safety reasons to minimise the risk of lives being lost to Hizbullah ambushes and bombings.