Eli Harel was an Israeli soldier in his early thirties when he was sent into Lebanon in 2006 to battle fighters from the Iranian-backed group Hezbollah in a bloody, largely inconclusive month-long war.
Now 50, Harel is ready to rejoin the army to fight the same group if shelling along Israel's northern border turns into a full-blown war with Iran's most powerful regional proxy. This time Israeli forces would face some of the most challenging fighting conditions imaginable, he said.
"There are booby traps everywhere," he told Reuters. "People are popping up from tunnels. You have to be constantly on alert otherwise you will be dead."
Harel lives in Haifa, Israel's third biggest city, well within range of Hezbollah's weapons. Haifa's mayor recently urged residents to stockpile food and medicine because of the growing risk of all-out war.
Israel and Hezbollah have been engaged in escalating daily cross-border strikes over the past six months - in parallel with the war in Gaza - and their increasing range and sophistication has spurred fears of a wider regional conflict.
Hezbollah has amassed a formidable arsenal since 2006.
Like Hamas, the militant Palestinian group battling Israel in Gaza, Hezbollah has a network of tunnels to move fighters and weapons around. Its fighters have also been training for more than a decade with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's forces.
Hezbollah has so far restricted its attacks to a strip of northern Israel, seeking to draw Israeli forces away from Gaza. Israel has said it is ready to push Hezbollah back from the border, but it is unclear how.
Some 60,000 residents have had to leave their homes, in the first mass evacuation of northern Israel, and cannot safely return, prompting increased calls within Israel for firmer military action against Hezbollah. Across the border in Lebanon, some 90,000 people have also been displaced by Israeli strikes.
Eyal Hulata, a former Israeli national security adviser, said Israel should announce a date in the next few months when displaced Israeli civilians can return, effectively challenging Hezbollah to scale back its shelling or face all-out war.
"Israelis cannot be in exile in their own country. This cannot happen. It is the responsibility of the army to defend civilians. It is what we failed to do on Oct. 7," he said, referring to the Hamas attack on southern Israel that prompted the current war in Gaza
Hezbollah did not respond to a request for comment. The group's leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said in February that residents of northern Israel "will not return" to their homes.
The Israeli military said this month it had completed another step in preparing for possible war with Hezbollah that centred on logistics, including preparations for a "broad mobilization" of reservists.
A conflict between Israel and Hezbollah would probably result in massive destruction in both countries. In the 2006 war, 1,200 people in Lebanon were killed and 158 in Israel.
Since October, more than 300 people have died in fighting in the border area, mainly Hezbollah fighters.
If war did break out, Israel would probably bomb targets in southern Lebanon before soldiers tried to push at least 10 kilometres across the border. Hezbollah would likely use its estimated arsenal of over 150,000 rockets to target Israeli cities. In 2006 the group fired about 4,000 missiles at Israel.
