Stephen Hawking has announced that his decision to not attend the Israeli President’s Conference is due to “health reasons” and “not an academic boycott” as previously claimed by the British Committee for the Universities of Palestine.

Professor Hawking, world-renowned physicist, was due to head the fifth ‘Facing Tomorrow’ conference hosted by Israeli President Shimon Peres in June but he told Mr Peres last week that he will not be attending.

Earlier today, sources claimed that Professor Stephen attributed his decision to a new-found “knowledge of Palestine.”

The information stemmed from a claim made by the British Committee for the Universities of Palestine that Professor Hawking had approved a statement saying that: "his independent decision to respect the boycott, is based upon his knowledge of Palestine, and on the unanimous advice of his own academic contacts there".

According to a University of Cambridge spokesperson , the 71-year-old professor of mathematics has asked the committee to remove the statement.