Israeli nuclear whistle-blower Mordechai Vanunu began a three-month jail sentence on Sunday for breaking the terms of his release and meeting a foreigner, judicial sources said.

An Israeli court had in December sentenced Vanunu to serve three months community service or three months in prison, for violating the terms of his release from prison in 2004.

The former nuclear technician, who served 18 years for disclosing atomic secrets to a British newspaper, had opted for community service but asked Israel's Supreme Court if he could perform it in Arab east Jerusalem.

Vanunu said he did not want to work in mainly Jewish west Jerusalem for fear that he would be "harassed by the Israeli population."

The court rejected his request and ordered him to serve three months behind bars.

"Shame on you, Israel, and the stupid Shin Bet and Mossad spies who are returning me to jail after 24 years in which I have spoken only the truth," Vanunu shouted in court before being led away, referring to Israel's internal security arm and its international spy service.

"Freedom is a basic part of human rights. I am not an animal. You punished me in the past, but I cannot accept a violation of my freedom of expression."

The 55-year-old was arrested in December at a Jerusalem hotel while talking to a Norwegian woman.

Vanunu was jailed in 1986 for disclosing the inner workings of Israel's Dimona nuclear plant to Britain's Sunday Times newspaper.

Since his release in 2004, he has been detained several times for violating the terms of his release that ban him from travel or contact with foreigners.

Rights group Amnesty International said earlier this month that if Israel sent Vanunu back to jail, it would declare him "a prisoner of conscience."

Israel is widely believed to be the only nuclear-armed power in the Middle East, with around 200 warheads, but it has a policy of neither confirming nor denying that.

The Jewish state has refused to sign the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty or to allow international surveillance of Dimona in the southern Negev desert.

Vanunu became an international cause celebre during his time in prison.

At home, he is still widely reviled for converting to Christianity shortly before he was kidnapped in Italy. He was jailed after being covertly shipped back to Israel.