Asked if they supported the air strike nearly two weeks ago -- over which Israel has kept silent and which foreign press reports say was aimed at a nuclear target --, 78 percent of Israelis said yes.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's lowly ratings rose 10 percentage points on the back of this support to 35 percent, according to the survey.

This would continue Olmert's recovery from single digits where his ratings had wallowed for months because of last year's inconclusive war in Lebanon and a string of government corruption scandals.

Continuing Israel's official wall of silence, Olmert refused in an interview with Russian-language media late Monday to comment on the September 6 incident during which Syria said its air defences fired on Israeli warplanes that had dropped ammunition deep inside its territory.

Olmert would say only that he had "great respect" for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and that "Israel is ready for direct negotiations with Syria, without preconditions," local media reported.

Peace talks between the two neighbours, which remain in an official state of war, collapsed seven years ago over disagreements over the Golan Heights, the strategic plateau Israel captured from Damascus in 1967 and annexed in 1981.

Damascus has filed an official complaint with the United Nations over the mysterious attack but has likewise remained tight-lipped over the details.

The only quasi confirmation has come from anonymous defence officials in Israel's main ally the United States.

They have said the Jewish state carried out a "quick" strike to send a message to Damascus not to continue supporting Hezbollah, with which Israel fought a war last year.

With scant official information available, most of the speculation over the strike has come in foreign media reports, which first said it was aimed at weapons financed by Israel's arch enemy Iran.

But over the past week, more and more reports have alleged that the strike was aimed at either a nuclear facility or nuclear material provided by North Korea.

Syrian official media have blasted such reports as "lies" that could be used as a pretext for attacking Damascus, and on Tuesday the North Korean foreign minister also rejected the allegations.

"Recently some US media including the New York Times have been spreading allegations that we are secretly helping Syria with its nuclear programme. Such reports are groundless and misleading," a ministry spokesman said.

"We, as a responsible nuclear power, already declared in October 2006 that we will never allow the transfer of nuclear materials, and we have been sticking to this declaration," the spokesman said in a statement published by the official Korean Central News Agency.

"Allegations about secret nuclear cooperation are nothing but a clumsy plot set up again by vicious forces who do not want progress in North Korea-US relations and six-party talks," he said.

The United States has long accused North Korea, which carried out a nuclear weapons test in October 2006, of weapons proliferation. US officials have charged Syria with bankrolling terrorism groups in the Middle East.

US Defence Secretary Robert Gates has said his country would have a "real problem" if Syria and North Korea were collaborating on a nuclear programme.

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