The Israeli was born in what is now Poland on September 15, 1903, three months before the Wright brothers' first powered and controlled aeroplane flight.

He lived there after the First World War until the Nazi occupation in World War II, when he was eventually sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp.

Kristal survived and moved to Israel, where he has lived for over six decades.

Guinness World Records confirmed on Friday he was now considered the world's oldest living man, but Kristal remained modest.

"I don't know the secret for long life. I believe that everything is determined from above and we shall never know the reasons why," he said in a statement on Friday.