Israel waits for world to wake up as Iran blocks inspectors

Herman Nackaerts, the head of the IAEA team, said that they "could not find a way forward."

The failed IAEA mission came following meetings in Israel between the US National Security Adviser, Tom Donilon, and Israeli leaders. James Clapper, the director US National Intelligence, is also scheduled to visit Israel soon.

According to a White House spokesman, Mr Donilon urged his Israeli counterparts to give the new sanctions on Iran time to have an impact. Iran will also be at the top at the agenda at the March 5 meeting in Washington between President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The flurry of meetings is a result of the mounting concern in Washington that Israel is close to making a decision to launch attacks on Iran.

General Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, who visited Israel himself last month, said over the weekend in an interview with CNN that the two countries disagree over the best way to confront Iran.

Gen Dempsey said that Israel's leaders "understand our concerns that a strike at this time would be destabilising and wouldn't achieve their long-term objectives", but he also understood "that Israel has national interests that are unique to them. And, of course, they consider Iran to be an existential threat in a way that we have not concluded that Iran is an existential threat."

The American officials believe that Mr Barak is leading the faction within Israel's political and security establishments that is pushing for an attack on Iran's nuclear installations before the Iranians have time to move more of their uranium enrichment facilities into underground reinforced bunkers, while Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is not yet decided on the timing of an attack.