Gabriella Gafni, Israel's ambassador to the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) which ElBaradei heads, told AFP the visit was on for July but said the agenda has not yet been set.

IAEA spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said it would be ElBaradei's first trip to Israel in six years and that he would be carrying out his mandate from the 137-member agency "to promote non-proliferation and a nuclear weapon-free zone in the Middle East."

Diplomats close to the IAEA said the visit would be in the first half of July.

ElBaradei will visit Israel after two other critical trips this year -- to Libya, which has disarmed its nuclear weapons programs, and to Iran, which the IAEA is investigating to answer US charges that Tehran is secretly trying to devlop nuclear weapons.

ElBaradei's trip will also follow the release from prison this month of Israeli nuclear whistle-blower Mordechai Vanunu.

The one-time technician at the Dimona nuclear plant in southern Israel was jailed in 1986 after leaking details of the plant to a British newspaper.

Vanunu has become a hero of the anti-nuclear movement and says Israel should rid itself of nuclear weapons and open up Dimona to international inspection.

Israel is a member of the IAEA but not a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which the IAEA is mandated to enforce. Israel is thus not a subject of IAEA surveillance and verification.

Arab countries that are members of the IAEA have complained that Israel's alleged nuclear weapons program is not being investigated, at a time when countries like Iran are under intense scrutiny from the UN agency.

ElBaradei said in an interview in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz in December that Israel should give up its nuclear arsenal.

He called for discussions to be engaged between Israel and its regional neighbours in order to establish a de-nuclearised zone and avoid further development of weapons of mass destruction.

"My fear is that without such a dialogue, there will be continued incentive for the region's countries to develop weapons of mass destruction to match the Israeli arsenal," ElBaradei told the liberal Israeli daily.

He deplored Israel's refusal to open the dialogue before its Middle East neighbours recognise the Jewish state, arguing that signing the NPT could engender the trust needed for progress.

Israel has shown reluctance to take any conciliatory moves and charges that Iran's nuclear programme is the biggest threat to its security.

Gafni reiterated that Israel's policy was to "neither deny nor confirm" that it has nuclear weapons.

She said this policy would "not change in the very near future".

Israel has never acknowledged having a nuclear arsenal but foreign experts believe it has produced between 100 and 200 nuclear warheads.

At an IAEA conference in Vienna last September, Arab states had tried and failed to get the UN watchdog to demand that Israel submit to nuclear weapons proliferation safeguards.

But the 137 IAEA member states did pass a resolution calling for a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East, without specifically mentioning Israel.

Jordanian representative Muhyieddeen Touq said then that since the IAEA had given Iran a deadline to come clean on its alleged nuclear weapons program, action should be taken against "another country," namely Israel, which he said "was using nuclear energy not for peaceful purposes."

The official Syrian press warned last week that Israel's policy of ambiguity on its nuclear programme "dangerously threatened" global security.

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