Beside Israel’s northern border fence, the bursts of machine-gun fire from inside Lebanon are loud and long, as new Israeli forces push in to take strategic positions near the border.
The regular rumble of air strikes echoes over the shattered remains of Shia villages, destroyed during Israel’s last ground war there in 2024.
A senior military official said on Thursday that Israeli ground forces were taking additional hilltops inside Lebanon - a defensive operation, he said, to better protect Israel’s northern communities.
But there has been a significant military build-up here. On Friday morning we passed dozens of tanks and armoured bulldozers, newly-positioned right by the border, fuelling growing speculation that a full-scale ground invasion is planned.