An Israeli official talks of "taking down" a UK minister but another person involved says the words were "tongue-in-cheek".
Israel's ambassador to the UK has apologised after an embassy official was recorded discussing how to "take down" a UK Foreign Office minister.
In a secretly-recorded conversation, the embassy's senior political officer Shai Masot said Sir Alan Duncan was causing "a lot of problems".
The conversation was recorded at a restaurant opposite the Israeli Embassy in Kensington during October last year, as part of an investigation by Al Jazeera
Those at the meal were Mr Masot, the undercover reporter and Maria Strizzolo, an aide to education minister Robert Halfon, the former political director of Conservative Friends of Israel.
The reporter posed as a pro-Israel graduate activist.
Mr Masot asked Ms Strizzolo: "Can I give you some names of MPs that I would suggest you take down?"
She replied that all MPs have "something they're trying to hide".
Mr Masot responded by saying: "I have some MPs... She knows which MPs I want to take down... the deputy foreign minister".
Sir Alan has previously criticised Israel and was seen as a bigger problem than his boss Boris Johnson who was dismissed by Mr Masot as "basically good" but also "an idiot".
A transcript of the conversation published by the Mail on Sunday had Mr Masot saying: "(Boris Johnson) just doesn't care. He is an idiot but has become minister of foreign affairs without any responsibilities. If something real happened, it won't be his fault... it will be Alan Duncan.
"Duncan is impossible to rebuff... he has a lot of friends."
Ms Strizzolo told the newspaper that her words to Mr Masot were "tongue-in-cheek and gossipy".
She added: "Any suggestion that I...could exert the type of influence you are suggesting is risible."
She said she knew Mr Masot socially but that she had never worked with him or had any "political dealings" with him "beyond chatting about politics, as millions of people do, in a social context".
The Israeli Embassy said in a statement that it "rejects the remarks concerning Minister Duncan, which are completely unacceptable; the comments were made by a junior embassy employee who is not an Israeli diplomat, and who will be ending his term of employment with the embassy shortly.
"Ambassador Regev on Friday spoke with Minister Duncan, apologised for the comments and made clear that the embassy considered the remarks to be completely unacceptable."
The Foreign Office confirmed Mr Regev had apologised.