Israel is ready to react to any attempt by the Lebanese militia Hezbollah to open up a new battle front on the northern border during the operation to pull out of Gaza, army chief of staff Moshe Yaalon said Tuesday. "The army is ready to respond to any attempt (by Hezbollah) to provoke the opening of a new front and it will pay the price if it does so," public radio quoted Yaalon as telling a gathering of civic leaders close to the border with both Lebanon and Syria. Thousands of troops are expected to take part in the operation to remove the 8,000 Jewish settlers of the Gaza Strip and several hundred from four small northern West Bank settlements from mid-July. While incidents on the once highly volatile northern border are less frequent, three people, including a French UN peacekeeper, were killed last month in a flare-up of violence between Israeli troops and Hezbollah.