The Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, will mark International Holocaust Day today with a visit to the Auschwitz death camp, which was liberated by Soviet troops 65 years ago.

He will be accompanied by a delegation of Israeli MPs and Holocaust survivors at a special ceremony at the camp where 1.1 million people were murdered by the Nazis during World War II, 90 per cent of them Jews.

With a new report by the Global Forum for Combating Anti-Semitism indicating that last year witnessed a record number of anti-Semitic incidents in Western Europe, Mr Netanyahu warned that Jews were once again facing calls for their extermination.

''There is a new call for the extermination of the Jewish people,'' Mr Netanyahu said before his departure for Poland at the opening of an exhibition of the Auschwitz death camp blueprints at the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem.

''There is evil in the world. If it is unstopped it expands; and it is expanding. And it is threatening the same people, the Jewish people, but we know it only starts with the Jewish people,'' he said.

Just over a year since the end of Israel's war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, which killed an estimated 1300 Palestinians and 13 Israelis, Mr Netanyahu said the conflict had prompted a rise in anti-Semitism. ''This anti-Semitism is mixed with a new attempt to deny the Jewish state the right of self-defence.''

According to the annual report of the Global Forum for Combating Anti-Semitism, more anti-Semitic incidents took place in the first three months of last year than in all of 2008.

More than 630 anti-Semitic incidents were reported in France in the first half of last year, compared with 474 in all of 2008.

The report also claimed that 42 per cent of Western Europeans suspect that Jews are exploiting their past as victims in order to extort money.

Among the MPs expected to attend the Auschwitz ceremony today is Mohammed Barakeh, a Palestinian Arab citizen of Israel who represents the leftist Hadash party in the Knesset, Israel's parliament.

Mr Barakeh's inclusion in the Israeli delegation caused controversy, with one Israeli newspaper reporting he had received anonymous hate mail advising him not to ''pollute Auschwitz-Birkenau with your presence''.

A Likud MP, Danny Danon, had tried to prevent Mr Barakeh joining the delegation, arguing that he ''isn't worthy of representing the Knesset''.