Fearing that its enemies are rearming along its borders, Jerusalem has asked Washington to increase the emergency stores by $400m (£278m) to $1.2bn and is also seeking to buy more Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) bombs from the US, the liberal newspaper Ha'aretz reported, citing unnamed sources.

The JDAM is a sophisticated satellite-guided bomb used extensively by Israel in the Lebanon War in 2006 and in its Gaza offensive at the end of 2008.

The Israeli Ministry of Defence refused to comment on the report and the US State Department did not respond to requests for comment.

Washington agreed in December to double stores to $800m worth of arms, including rockets, bombs and armoured vehicles, allowing the Israeli forces to use the equipment with US approval in the case of an emergency.

Israel has already done so in the past, falling back on the US munitions during the Lebanon War in which at least 1,200 Lebanese and 160 Israelis were killed.

The Israeli move reflects the country's growing sense of embattlement in a region largely hostile to it. Iran

has repeatedly threatened to erase Israel from the map, while Hizbollah, the Iranian-backed Lebanese militia group, has amassed thousands of rockets along Israel's northern border. Relations with Turkey, once Israel's closest ally in the region, have plunged to new lows following the flotilla raid.

Israel does have a sense of the coalescing of an alliance which is committed sooner or later to war with Israel, said Jonathan Spyer, senior researcher at the Global Research in International Affairs Centre in Herzliya. Everyone is building up frightening amounts of military hardware.