Musician and campaigner Bob Geldof is accepting an honorary degree from Ben Gurion University later this year.

The award from the university is being conferred in celebration of Mr Geldof's anti-poverty activism, including his organisation of the Live Aid and Live 8 concerts and his work with a range of charitable causes.

It is understood it will be a first visit to Israel for the former front-man of the Boomtown Rats.

"Sir" Bob (his knighthood is honorary since he is an Irish citizen) who will be given the award at a ceremony in Israel in May, will be honoured at the same time as British historian and biographer Sir Martin Gilbert, and businessman Sir Stephen Waley-Cohen.

Nominated twice for the Nobel Peace Prize for his work increasing global awareness of famine in Africa, Mr Geldof will also attend a conference on humanitarian aid while in Israel.

The “Israel in Africa – Past, Present and Future” event, organised by IsraAID (The Israel Forum for International Humanitarian Aid) will take place in Herzliya.

In 2006 Mr Geldof, who already has honorary degrees from Newcastle University and the University of East London, was given an award for “moral courage” from the Holocaust Museum in Houston.

In 2004 it emerged that Mr Geldof’s grandmother Amelia, who ran a tea shop in Dublin, was Jewish.