Iran's UN envoy has accused Israel of staging a suicide bomb attack on its own tourists in a bus explosion last Wednesday, in which five Israelis were killed and dozens more were injured.

The attack took place at the airport of Burgas, Bulgaria, a popular seaside resort for Israeli tourists.

Israel has accused Iran and the Lebanese terror group Hizbollah of the incident. Iran has denied these allegations.

In a UN Security Council debate on Wednesday, Iran's UN Ambassador Mohammad Khazaee said: "It's amazing that just a few minutes after the terrorist attack, Israeli officials announced that Iran was behind it. We have never and will not engage in such a despicable attempt on the lives of innocent people."

"Such terrorist operation could only be planned and carried out by the same regime whose short history is full of state terrorism operations and assassinations aimed at implicating others for narrow political gains," Mr Khazaee declared. He continued by saying that there had been "many examples" of Israel killing "its own citizens and innocent Jewish people during the last couple of decades."

Israel's deputy UN Ambassador Haim Waxman reaffirmed his government's view that Iran's fingerprints were all over last week's bomb attack, "and in dozens of other terrorist plots in recent months that span five continents and at least 24 countries."

"These comments are appalling, but not surprising from the same government that says the 9/11 attack was a conspiracy theory and denies the Holocaust," Mr Waxman said. "The time has come for the world to put an end to this campaign of terror, once and for all."