Army officials said Thursday that a high concrete wall they are building along a segment of the Lebanese border will better protect a nearby town, and "reduce tensions" with villagers on the other side.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Spokesman's Office offered the press a close-up view of the one-km-long segment that is going up on Israel's side less than a meter away from the "Blue Line" international border, in close coordination with UN Interim Forces in Lebanon (UNIFIL).

Work began Monday on the month-long project to erect the barrier along the hilly several dozen meter-wide border route, which snakes between the Lebanese town of Kfar Kila to the west, and the Israeli town of Metulla to the east.

Standing in front of a backhoe excavating a meter-deep ditch on Israel's side of the border in which the panels will be anchored, Capt. Arye Shalicar told Xinhua that "there was friction, there was tension here on almost a daily basis."

IDF officials told Xinhua that people in Kfar Kila would hurl stones and verbal abuse at army patrols, despite the presence of UNIFIL patrols.

Kfar Kila is known to be a Hezbollah stronghold, and photo banners of a smiling Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad with an upraised fist hang on power poles facing Israel.

Nearby, temporary bright-orange plastic fencing sharply delineate the division between the two countries.

Blue-beret UNIFIL troops in both Lebanese and Israeli territory closely monitored the progress of a flatbed truck-mounted crane, as its operator carefully lowered panel after panel into the trench that marked, what Israel hoped, would soon be a somewhat less hostile border.

On Tuesday, army forces drilled emergency medical evacuations along the route, after first asking UNIFIL to alert Lebanese forces not to mistake the Israeli test as a hostile act.

A year and a half ago, a Lebanese army sniper shot and killed a senior Israeli officer overseeing brush clearing in the area, Shalicar noted.

When completed, the five-meter-high concrete barrier will be topped by two meters of fencing and barbed wire, and stretch from former Jidar al-Tayyib Gate to the Fatima Gate crossing.

Army officials said they were not planning to erect similar barriers at any other areas along the border.