Israel is trying to prevent a vote at the International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) annual conference next week on subjecting the country's nuclear facilities to international inspection.

The Egyptian-led motion could create serious problems for Israel's longstanding policy on "nuclear opacity".

Last month, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's special envoy, Yitzhak Molho, travelled to Cairo together with the head of the National Security Council, Yossi Cohen, to meet Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry, but failed to convince him to abandon the motion.

While security co-operation with Egypt has never been higher, following the peace accords between the two countries in the late 1970s, the nuclear issue became a way for Egypt to show other Arab countries that it was still standing up to Israel.