LONDON: The British government was under pressure Friday over reports that it would allow the US to send two more planes carrying bombs and missiles to Israel via Britain. London has already permitted two US aircraft laden with arms bound for the Jewish state to refuel at an airport in Scotland last weekend, newspapers said.

The allegation prompted Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett to complain to her US counterpart, Condoleezza Rice.

A majority of the British public opposes the Israeli campaign on Lebanon, which has left hundreds of civilians dead in Lebanon and devastated huge swathes of the country.

People have also condemned Premier Tony Blair's decision to side with the US by refusing to call for an immediate cease-fire.

Turning up the heat, Sir Menzies Campbell, leader of the second-ranked Liberal Democrats opposition party, demanded that the government refuse further US requests to use British airports as a transit for weapons.

"Britain should say no," Campbell said, referring to the reports that two more US planes would be allowed to use Glasgow's Prestwick Airport as a stop-over en route to Israel.

"One would have hoped that the US government would have been sensitive to the fact that this is an issue which is causing a great deal of concern in the United Kingdom and would not have made such requests," he said.
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The planes that landed at Prestwick over the weekend had been designated "civilian flights" and US officials had failed to notify British authorities of their dangerous contents, which included bunker-busting bombs, The Times said.

Beckett, who claimed she was "not happy" at the allegation, said she had raised the initial report with Rice and would issue a formal complaint to Washington if it was found to be true.

But The Times reported that the diplomatic row was more about procedure than principle, and quoted an unidentified senior government official saying flights through Prestwick "will be allowed to continue. ... It is a right we have always granted."

The White House, too, has dismissed British concerns about the allegations, with spokesman Tony Snow on Thursday calling it "a paperwork question."

Campbell, however, said the US stance was disingenuous.

"Even supposing all the paperwork was completely and absolutely in order, supposing all the bureaucracy had been satisfied, is there not an understanding that here in the United Kingdom there's real concern about the fact there's no cease-fire and the [Israeli] response which many people regard as disproportionate and amounts to collective punishment?" he asked.