An Israeli army unit came under automatic gunfire Sunday near Zarit, close to the Lebanese border, although no one was injured, a source close to the army told AFP.
The soldiers fired back across the border in the direction of the gunfire, the source said.
It was the second such incident in a week in the area.
Meanwhile, hundreds of Palestinians staged a demonstration Sunday morning near the Fatima border-crossing with Lebanon near the Israeli town of Metullah.
They brandished Palestinian flags and threw stones and bottles over the fence erected along the border, said an AFP correspondent at the scene.
An AFP reporter in southern Lebanon said some 2,000 women and children had staged the protest in support of the Palestinians at the call of the militant Lebanese Hezbollah group.
"We are witnessing a general heating-up at the Lebanese-Israeli border and our troops are ready for any eventuality," the army spokesman for the northern region told Israeli radio.
"There are nearly daily incidents along the border. It's a situation that we haven't seen for several months," he said.
Incidents had been regularly reported along the border since Israeli troops completed their unilateral withdrawal from southern Lebanon on May 24.
The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon has been deployed in the evacuated zone and the Lebanese army has yet to take up positions on the border.
Israel's Deputy Defense Minister Ephraim Sneh also told Israeli radio he intended to tour northern Israel later Sunday, notably to inspect local defense measures.
Earlier this month, two Palestinians were killed when Israeli troops fired on a group of refugees throwing stones at them from the Lebanese side of the border -- METULLAH (AFP)
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