Israel is "not interested" in opening up a new front in the north as it carries out a massive offensive on Hamas in Gaza, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said on Sunday in a veiled reference to Lebanon”s Hezbollah militia.
"Israel has no interest in opening new fronts other than the one in the south," Olmert said at the start of the cabinet meeting. "Not to the east and not to the north."
"But caution is required, and I have therefore instructed the defence establishment to be extremely alert and prepared for any development in the event that someone might think that this is his opportunity to take advantage of Israel focusing on the southern front in order to try and change the stable reality created following events in the past."
His comments were a thinly veiled reference to Lebanon”s Hezbollah militia with which Israel fought a war in 2006 just weeks into Israel”s last major offensive against the Gaza Strip. Two weeks after Israel launched its assault on Gaza in June 2006 — after militants in the territory seized a soldier in a cross-border raid — Hezbollah launched a deadly cross-border raid of its own in Israel”s north and seized two soldiers. In response Israel unleashed a war on Hezbollah that lasted for 34 days and killed more than 1,200 Lebanese, mostly civilians, and more than 160 Israelis, mostly soldiers.