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Telephoto taken in Israel of a border marker (stone cairn) in Lebanon, close to the '1949 armistice line' between Israel and Lebanon in'Upper Galilee'. It dates back to the early 1920's when a border was placed in what was once an uninterrupted region of the Ottoman empire. The partition came after World War I. The British and French divided the Middle East into spheres of influence (League of Nations 'mandates'), based on their secret agreement of 1916 (Sykes-Picot). New borders between 'new countries' were traced: Palestine, Lebanon and Syria. It marked the end of the reign of the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed V and the short lived Kingdom of Greater Syria under Faisal bin Hussein. As no natural division lines existed, stone border markers were placed, like around the Jewish settlements of Metula (founded at the end of the 19th century) putting it in British controlled Palestine. This protruding strech of border land is known as the 'Galilee Panhandle', a geo-political tension point till this day. The area saw several wars and in the aftermath of the Israel invasion of Lebanon in 1978, during a period of control by the Isareli Army, the military and locals from Metula started to illegally transport fertile top-soil from the Lebanese to the Israeli side of the border.