KHARTOUM, April 7 (Reuters) - Sudan's Foreign Ministry said on Thursday it would report Israel to the UN Security Council about a missile attack on its east that killed two people.

Israel has declined to comment on Khartoum's accusation that it launched the strike near Port Sudan airport on Tuesday night. It was similar to a 2009 attack on an arms convoy in Sudan's east which Israel neither admitted nor denied responsibility for.

We have started the process to make an official complaint to the Security Council, said Foreign Ministry spokesman Khaled Musa.

In a written statement the ministry also denied media reports that one of the men killed was a senior official from Palestinian Hamas, saying both men in the car targeted on Tuesday night were Sudanese.

This was a desperate Israeli attempt to damage Sudan's image and link it to terrorism and illegal practices to derail an understanding with the United States to remove Sudan from the state sponsors of terror list, the statement said.

Washington has begun the process of removing Sudan from its state sponsors of terror list after it recognized the result of a southern referendum on secession in January.

To qualify, Sudan must not support any acts of terrorism or any groups designated as terrorist by the United States in the six months preceding the removal from the list. Khartoum has close ties to Hamas but deny giving any support to the group.

Sudanese officials said one car was targeted in a precision strike in the remote east. Officials gave differing reports as to whether the missile was launched by ship or by an aircraft.

Sudan's desert east has long been a trafficking route for arms moving through Egypt's Sinai region into the Gaza Strip or people moving onto Europe or Israel.

(Reporting by Opheera McDoom; editing by Elizabeth Piper)