Israel-bound US arms flights set to land in Britain

The Boeing 747 jets, carrying "hazardous material" from Texas to Tel Aviv, were due to touch down late Saturday and early Sunday at Glasgow Prestwick Airport in Scotland, a Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) spokesman said.

He added that they would be on the tarmac for a matter of hours while they were refuelled.

Israel is involved in an increasingly bloody conflict with the Hezbollah militia in Lebanon in a crisis that flared up on July 12 and has cost over 500 lives.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair is facing growing domestic criticism for siding with the United States in not calling for an immediate ceasefire.

Blair was asked about the plane stopovers while he was in San Francisco on Saturday, on a four-day visit to promote British business interests, particularly within the biotechology sector.

"In relation to the issue of Prestwick Airport, we should just apply the rules in the proper way," he told Sky News television.

"That's what we're doing. What happens at Prestwick Airport is not going to determine whether we get a ceasefire in Lebanon."

Pressed that the transfer of missiles through the Scottish airport was "a gesture of war, not a gesture of peace", he said: "I don't think it really matters one way or another.

"What matters and what is most important is to get an agreement on the elements that would allow this (conflict) to stop."

A CAA spokesman said of this weekend's stopovers: "They are hazardous material flights -- the items that they are carrying are understood to be of a dangerous nature.

"They are landing at Prestwick for refuelling, and needed an exemption to be able to land in the UK. This was granted last week."

On Friday, US President George W. Bush apologized to Blair in Washington over the previous use of Prestwick without proper procedures being followed.

The two previous planes were described as civilian flights and the US did not notify the British authorities of their cargo which, according to one newspaper report, included bunker-busting high explosive bombs.

British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett made public her annoyance at the mix-up.

Menzies Campbell, the leader of the smaller opposition Liberal Democrats, said the new flights were "adding insult to injury".

"The British government should be pursuing an active policy of denying weapons of any kind to anyone in the Middle East who may be assisting the conflict in any way," he said.

Prestwick's coastal location on the trans-Atlantic flight path makes it a regular staging post for aircraft crossing the ocean.

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