The Iranian people are ready to march on Israel to "wipe it out" if the Jewish state attacks the Islamic republic, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said in statements published Wednesday by Egypt's state news agency.

"The people of Iran are ready to march on Israel to wipe it out if it launches into an adventure against Tehran" and attacks the country, the Iranian president told Egyptian newspaper editors, according to excerpts published by MENA.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has told relatives of victims of last year's attack on Israeli tourists in Bulgaria that those responsible for the killings "will pay the price."

Netanyahu's office said Wednesday in a statement that the head of Israel's counterterrorism bureau told the victims' families in his name that "Israel will do everything so that those responsible for the crime will pay the price."

The Palestinian presidency hopes U.S. President Barack Obama's forthcoming visit will mark the beginning of a new U.S. policy in the region, a spokesman said on Wednesday.

"President Mahmoud Abbas welcomes the visit of U.S. President Barack Obama to Palestine," Nabil Abu Rudeina, spokesman for the Palestinian presidency told Agence France Presse.

The European Union now faces the difficult task of dealing with demands to designate Hizbullah as a terrorist organization after Bulgaria announced Tuesday that the Lebanese party was behind a bomb attack in July that killed five Israeli tourists and one Bulgarian.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague said in a statement that the EU should “respond robustly to an attack on European soil.”

Israel has deployed a third Iron Dome missile defense battery to the north of the country a few days after carrying out an air strike inside neighboring Syria, Israeli media said on Tuesday.

"The deployment of several Iron Dome batteries in the north of the country comes as part of the setting up of the system," an army spokesman was quoted as saying.

President Barack Obama plans to soon make his first trip to Israel as U.S. leader to confer on the Iranian nuclear showdown and to soothe his delicate relationship with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The White House said Tuesday that Obama also plans to stop to talk to Palestinian leaders in the West Bank and to travel to Jordan on his trip, which will bring him close to the turmoil threatening to tear Syria apart.

The possible downfall of Syrian President Bashar Assad could open new and dangerous fronts for Israel, even if it weakens Hizbullah, experts say.

While nobody can predict when or how Assad's regime could crumble, such a scenario "would dramatically affect Israel," a senior Israeli security official speaking on condition of anonymity told Agence France Presse.

Israeli President Shimon Peres said on Tuesday that the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran was growing under the "terrifying dictatorship" ruling the Islamic republic.

"The Iranian danger has grown," Peres said at the opening of the newly-elected Israeli parliament. "It threatens our existence, the independence of the Arab states, the peace of the whole world."

The Bulgarian government said Tuesday that Hizbullah was behind a bomb attack in July that killed five Israeli tourists and one Bulgarian.

"We have information on financing and membership of Hizbullah for two people including the bomber," Interior Minister Tsvetan Tsvetanov told reporters.

Expectations are rising that Bulgarian officials will confirm on Tuesday a link between Hizbullah and a suicide attack in Bulgaria that left five Israeli tourists dead in July last year, the New York Times reported.

A spokesman for the Bulgarian president’s office, Veselin Ninov, said that Interior Minister Tsvetan Tsvetanov, was expected to “announce the results of the interim progress report in the investigation of the Burgas attack” on Tuesday.