Residents of northern Israel are bracing for a possible all-out war with Hezbollah

Eli Harel was an Israeli soldier in his early 30s when he was sent to Lebanon in 2006 to fight fighters from the Iran-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 the shelling along Israel’s northern border turns into an outright war with Iran’s most powerful regional proxy. This time, Israel’s armed forces would face some of the most challenging combat conditions imaginable, he said.

“There are booby traps everywhere,” he told reporters. “People are emerging from tunnels. You have to be constantly alert, otherwise you’re dead.”