Iran and Syria pose a greater security threat than Libya and the West should treat those countries in the same way as it has Muammar Gaddafi's government, Israel's foreign minister said on March 24.

In a brief interview with Reuters after meeting his French counterpart, Alain Juppe, Avigdor Lieberman also said a recent upsurge of violence on the Gaza border and Wednesday's bomb attack in Jerusalem were "incitement" by the Palestinians.

Western warplanes hit Libyan tanks during a fifth night of airstrikes as they enforced a U.N. resolution aimed at stopping Gaddafi's counter-offensive against rebels seeking an end to his rule, Reuters reported.

Lieberman did not explicitly call for military action against Syria and Iran, but he said: "I think that the same principles, activities the Western world (has taken) in Libya ... I hope to see those regarding the Iranian regime and the Syrian regime."

Syrian security forces fired on hundreds of youth protesters in southern Syria on Wednesday, according to witnesses, in a dramatic escalation of six days of protests in which at least 32 civilians have been killed.