There are fears that tensions at the Israel-Lebanon border could become violent and bloody

 Israel-Lebanon border tension raises fears of bloody escalation

Two men scramble their way down a concrete wall while an Israeli military camera they've torn off the top dangles beside them.

"Hey lad, where are you?" yells one. "Follow me!"

The other - bare-chested - abseils down as video filmed by a third person shows what looks like a freshly raised Hezbollah flag fluttering above.

They run for it, away from the Israeli watchtowers and tanks ranged along the other side.

This is a life-threatening game of dare at one of the Middle East's most incendiary boundaries, among several raising fears of violent and bloody escalation.

Recent months have seen a growing number of incidents at the so-called Blue Line, the United Nations-patrolled boundary that separates Israel and the occupied Golan Heights from Lebanon.

The UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon, Unifil, says both Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah have carried out multiple breaches of international commitments at the line and beyond.

And there have been more serious moments still - including rocket fire into Israel by Palestinian militants in Lebanon who have Hezbollah's backing, and Israeli artillery fire back over the wire.

Earlier this year, a cross-border raid saw a militant from Lebanon - later shot dead by the Israelis - carry out a roadside bomb attack in northern Israel close to the biblical site of Armageddon. So are the chances growing of a third devastating war between Israel and Lebanon?

Fears of another flare-up

I jump into a dune buggy driven by Levav Weinberg - an apple farmer in the northern-most Israeli town of Metula.

The terrain here is spectacular, looking out over the wooded mountains of the upper Galilee and far into the green steppe of southern Lebanon, which we can see directly over the fence.

"The white tent over there next to a blue car, that's a Hezbollah tent… you can actually see that from my bedroom," Mr Weinberg tells me as we speed towards the boundary. "Now in the beginning, I didn't understand why my wife didn't want to sleep near the window. But sometimes you can hear them," he says.

FULL ARTICLE AT: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world/middle_east