JERUSALEM, Jan 6: Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Tuesday again sent a veiled warning to the Lebanese Hezbollah militia that Israel was ready to respond on its northern front if threatened.

“Let it be clear, we will make no compromise on our security... No one should get the wrong impression over our determination and our alertness on any front. We are not afraid of any confrontation or threat,” Olmert said.

“We truly hope that no one will put us to the test,” he said in a speech broadcast on army radio on the 11th day of Israel’s offensive in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.

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 cross-border raid of its own and seized two Israeli soldiers.—AFP