Israel has no plans to attack Iran or Syria and the country already has its "hands full" with Lebanon and the Gaza Strip, Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Shimon Peres said on BBC television yesterday.

"No, I don't think they will attack us... and we shall not attack them because I think Iran is a world problem," Peres said when asked whether the Jewish state would hit Iran or Syria which it accuses of providing arms to Hezbollah and the Palestinian Hamas militants.

He noted that it should be up to the international community to tackle the problem with Tehran and they wouldn't make it an "Iranian-Israeli conflict."

The remarks came as the crisis in Lebanon entered its second week and more than 230 people, mostly civilians, have died in the conflict. In the meantime, Israel's operations in the Gaza Strip, aimed at retrieving an abducted soldier and halting rocket attacks by Palestinian militants, have lasted three weeks.

"We would not attack Lebanon either, we wouldn't attack even Hezbollah, we wouldn't attack even Hamas if they wouldn't attack us and they wouldn't provoke," Peres defended his government's ongoing offensives.