Mr Gillerman, who will visit Australia later this month, said two clocks were running with respect to Iran: "There is the technological clock of Iran and there is the diplomatic clock, and I think the Iranian clock is running much faster."

Detailed military plans to bomb Iran's nuclear enrichment plant have long been on the table of Israeli military commanders. Outgoing Defence Minister Ehud Barak is believed to have requested US support for a military strike last May, but the plans were aborted after then-president George Bush declined to endorse them.

Last June, Israel carried out military exercises over the Mediterranean involving more than 100 F-16 and F-15 fighters in what was interpreted as a rehearsal for an attack on Iran's nuclear plants. At the time, The New York Times reported that as well as sending a warning to Tehran, the exercise was intended as a message to the US that Israel was prepared to act militarily if diplomatic efforts to stop Iran from producing bomb-grade uranium faltered.

On Tuesday, the man likely to lead Israel's next government, Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu, made a reference to Iran in his victory speech. He said: "Israel is facing an Iranian threat, from afar and from near. The nuclear threat and the terror threat … it will be up to us to deal with this, and we will be able to deal with these two challenges successfully."

Israel has carried out two strikes on suspected nuclear sites over the past 30 years. In 1981, its jets bombed Iraq's nuclear reactor at Osirak, and in September 2007, Israeli aircraft bombed a structure in Syria that was alleged to have housed a nuclear reactor.