From time to time, the sound of shelling disturbs an otherwise quiet day as Gilad Yehudai walks along a hill on the outskirts of Kibbutz Shamir in the Upper Galilee region of northern Israel. The Israeli-occupied Golan Heights is just a few meters away, and further to the northwest lies the Blue Line, the UN-demarcated border between Israel and Lebanon.

But Yehudai, 45, said the relative calm is misleading. "Here in the Upper Galilee and all along the border with Lebanon, it's already a war: missiles, drones, fires, alarms all the time, also from the Israeli side, airplanes in the sky," he told DW.

He worries the situation is about to get worse. "People who live in the center of Israel do not feel the war as we feel it," he said. "I hate to say it but I trust them [Hezbollah], I trust their threats and that they will follow up on them."

In recent weeks, cross-border attacks between Israel and Hezbollah have intensified, with the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militia firing rockets and drones from southern Lebanon deeper into northern Israel and the Israeli air force striking deeper into southern Lebanon. Both sides have also ratcheted up their rhetoric and threats, raising fears that all-out war could be imminent.

Meeting with Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on a recent visit to Washington, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said, "Another war between Israel and Hezbollah could easily become a regional war, with terrible consequences for the Middle East."

Gallant told Austin that Israel prefers diplomacy but........

© Deutsche Welle