Israel is awash with speculation over the mysterious disappearance of satellite television signals, with everyone from the Russians to the United Nations accused of jamming the population's nightly entertainment.

The television network is said to be "near collapse" after a month of electronic snowstorms and interference, rumoured to be variously caused by the radar of UN patrols, Russian spy ships or even Israel's military. The interference began on Sept 6, the day Israeli warplanes slipped past Syria's Russian-made air defence systems, and attacked a military target deep inside the country.

The Israeli government has maintained an almost total silence over the strike, which some foreign media reported as an attack on a possible nuclear installation.

Since then, desperate viewers of Desperate Housewives, frustrated followers of The Bold and the Beautiful, and other TV lovers have been bombarding the switchboard of the Israeli satellite broadcaster Yes, and have launched a 122 million shekel (£15 million) class action suit against the company for failing to deliver the goods.

In a nation surrounded by hostile neighbours and often fearful of attack, a number of theories have already been floated.

A senior Israeli defence official said that Israel believed that the source was a Dutch vessel serving with Unifil, a UN peacekeeping force deployed after the Hizbollah war in Lebanon last year.

A security official meanwhile told the Yediot Ahronot newspaper that Moscow was suspected of beaming signals to try to probe Israel's military electronic capability and as an expression of its anger at Israel for making Syria's Russian radar appear impotent.

The Russian defence ministry refused to comment.

The interruptions have led to cancelled subscriptions and forced Yes to seek to pacify its 500,000 subscribers with free films.

While the Netherlands had not accepted responsibility for the interference, Mark Regev, an Israeli foreign ministry spokesman, said technical experts were in contact with Unifil.

But in another Yediot Ahronot story, the paper's diplomatic correspondent quoted an unnamed government official as saying that the answer to the riddle could lie in Israel itself, with the emissions coming from military radar.