A military vehicle sped in from the direction of Lebanon, a few hundred metres away across the border, and drew up sharply at the camp. An Israeli soldier wearing white surgical gloves jumped down, slung his assault rifle over his shoulder and started shouting at the troops around him. Until then, most had been leaning on their rucksacks, trying to get some rest in the shade next to a couple of D-9 armoured bulldozers, apparently unconcerned by the fighting in the distance.
"We almost got hit up on the hill," the soldier shouted, frantic now. "Move out of here. We've been exposed. They've got our co-ordinates. Move." One of Hizbullah's rocket-propelled grenades had landed uncomfortably close to a nearby forward Israeli position.
The soldiers jumped into their vehicles, arguing with each other as they turned their tracked armoured personnel carriers around on the narrow dirt road and pushed back behind the tree line, hoping to be out of range. Others sweated as they loaded a pile of heavy shells into the back of a truck.
"Get those cars out of here," shouted another soldier. "Get into the bushes. Don't move in groups. Take the ammunition. Everybody needs to leave."
A moment later Israeli tanks and field guns, positioned further back from the border, started up a volley of shelling that lasted several minutes, raining down heavy fire at several targets over the hilltops deeper into Lebanon. A column of grey smoke rose from the fields.
But the expected Hizbullah attack did not come and an hour later the soldiers were only a few hundred metres back from their original position, some still sitting in the shade, others in command tents poring over their maps.
Israel's military censorship orders prevent the naming of places where its troops are deployed or where they cross the border into southern Lebanon as part of the now extensive ground operations against Hizbullah. But it is obvious to the many civilians living in northern Israel that there are positions like these all along the border.
Thousands of troops, with tanks, armoured vehicles and bulldozers, are massed in the north. It is also clear that the ground fighting is harder than the Israeli military first anticipated. So far 20 troops have been killed.
At least 10 soldiers were injured yesterday in heavy fighting just inside the Lebanese border and one tank was destroyed. Two crew were seriously injured when a military helicopter crashed on a hill in northern Israel, striking an electricity cable as it came down.
Israel says its forces have already taken the hilltop town of Maroun al-Ras and are pressing into the larger town of Bint Jbeil. From a distance Maroun al-Ras looks deserted, its dozen or so buildings sitting high on a hill overlooking northern Israel.
Back at the border position, some time after the troops had moved back, a large and ageing van appeared, playing religious songs and decorated with hand-painted signs that read Family Purity, Kosher Food, Charity and Love Your Fellow Jew. It parked among the military trucks and from within descended a dozen ultra-religious Jews, members of Chabad Lubavitch, a US-based Jewish movement.
They ran towards the soldiers trying to present them with prayer cards, encouragement and a reminder of commandments they should follow. One set up a small green table on the roadside and placed on it a bottle of Coca-Cola and a long, sliced cake. Few of the troops seemed to take any notice.
"Our mission," said Haim Nevo (50), a tall man with a long, grey beard, "is to save the soldiers, to give them spiritual power." It is something he and his colleagues have done in the past at times of conflict in Israel.
"We should finish Hizbullah off," he said.
"If someone wants to live in peace, they can stay here. But if anybody wants to fight, we have to kill them before they come to kill us. It is written in the Torah."