Israel is protesting to the United Nations, and some of its more hawkish politicians are threatening military action, over Lebanon's establishment of a new water pumping station just inside its border with Israel.
United Nations officials in the area are endorsing local Lebanese officials' insistence that the new station, to pump water from the Hatsbani River, is designed solely to meet the needs of small villages in the immediate vicinity, and that the pipes being laid are no more than 10 cm in diameter.
Arguments over the Middle East's precious water sources have been a prime cause of more than one regional war in past decades. Recent winters have been particularly dry in the region, much-touted desalination schemes have yet to be implemented, and with Israeli-Arab tensions already acute because of the conflict with the Palestinians, a minor water row could easily escalate.
Work began on the pumping station about a month ago, but moved into high gear yesterday with the placing of electricity pylons that, to some Israeli officials, suggest a more major project than the Lebanese are acknowledging. The Hatsbani is one of the main sources of the River Jordan, itself one of Israel's key water sources.
Since the swearing in last week of Israel's national unity government, responsibility for water has come into the hands of the new Minister for Infrastructure, Mr Avigdor Lieber man, a political hard-liner who served in the late 1990s as bureau chief to then Likud prime minister, Mr Benjamin Netanyahu.
Mr Lieberman said yesterday that Israel was first going to employ the diplomatic route to try and persuade Lebanon to abandon the new station. But if that didn't work, he said, Israel would "not be able to let the matter pass - with all that this entails". A hard-line colleague, Mr Michael Kleiner, has urged that Israel blow up the station forthwith.
Mr Uri Saguy, who heads Israel's Mekorot water company, called on Lebanon to honour understandings which require nations in the region to inform each other of projects that will affect water flow. "If not, it can turn into a war or a forceful confrontation," he said.
Israeli troops shot dead a Palestinian teenager in Gaza yesterday, and a Palestinian woman, a diabetic en route to hospital, died when Israeli troops prevented her from entering the West Bank city of Jenin, Palestinian officials said.
The Israeli human rights group, B'Tselem, also alleged that soldiers had been involved in dozens of cases of beating Palestinian labourers at roadblocks, and that the army failed to properly investigate such incidents.
Mr Jibril Rajoub, the Palestinian Authority's West Bank security chief, charged that Israel had made up its claim of an alleged car-bomb threat from Ramallah this week, to justify its ongoing blockade of the city. AFP adds: Israeli Prime Minister Mr Ariel Sharon said yesterday he would take steps to ease the blockade on the Palestinian territories but not to lift it, as he met with his security cabinet for the first time.
Specifically, Mr Sharon said he would "permit the entry of raw materials and merchandise into territories under Palestinian control, to authorise fishing and the construction of an electric station in Gaza, and the free movement of Palestinians between their cities"