Sean Penn is to visit Israel as part of his work for humanitarian aid organisations.

The actor, who is on screen this year as the rock-star son of a Holocaust survivor in This Must be the Place.

The announcement follows a meeting involving Mr Penn and IOsrael's deputy foreign minister Danny Ayalon in Los Angeles last week.

Mr Penn, who is a prominent activist for a number of left-wing causes, became heavily involved in the clean-up effort following the Haiti earthquake.

During one of his visits to the poverty-stricken country Mr Penn spent time touring the Israel Defense Forces field hospital set up in the wake of the disaster.

According to Ha'aretz, Mr Penn will visit the Jewish state to build links with Israeli aid organisations that have sent aid to Haiti and other disaster spots.

Mr Penn, whose paternal grandparents were Jewish immigrants from Lithuania and Russia, is expected to visit later this year.