Iran's Revolutionary Guards said on Sunday that 12 people had been arrested for being operatives collaborating with Israel and planning acts against Iran's security.

"As the Zionist regime (Israel) and their Western backers, most notably the United States, have not succeeded in their sinister goals against the people of Gaza and Lebanon, they are now seeking to spread the crisis to Iran with a series of actions planned against our country's security," the statement said.

Tensions in the Middle East have shot up since thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies used by Lebanon's Hezbollah members exploded in an attack widely blamed on Israel. Hezbollah and Israel have exchanged some of the heaviest cross-border fire in a conflict running in parallel to the almost year-long Gaza war.

The Revolutionary Guards added that members of the network of 12 operatives were arrested in six different Iranian provinces, but did not say when.

In late July, the political leader of Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, was killed in Tehran in an assassination blamed on Israel by Iranian authorities. Israel has made no claim of responsibility.