A second furore has arisen in Britain over the sale of military equipment to Israel.

The British government was criticised recently for allowing U.S. planes to stop at a Scottish airport for refueling, while rushing bombs to Israel.

British MPs are now protesting the sale of military equipment to Israel. According to The Guardian Thursday, government guidelines say export licences would not be agreed if there was a 'clear risk' they might be used for internal repression or would 'provoke or prolong armed conflict or aggravate existing tensions or conflicts'.

Ministers have also said they would block the sale of equipment which could be deployed 'aggressively' in the occupied territories.

The government must explain why it continues to approve the sale of arms to Israel in apparent breach of its own guidelines, a cross-party committee of senior backbenchers demanded Thursday.

MPs want to know 'what the [government's] policy actually means and how it is implemented in practice', Roger Berry, Labour chairman of the quadripartite committee, told the Guardian. In a reference to Israel, he asked: 'If the guidelines do not apply in those circumstances, where do they apply?'

Margaret Beckett was Wednesday threatened with legal action unless she bans the supply of British military equipment to Israel. Phil Shiner, of Public Interest Lawyers, has written to the foreign secretary saying the sale of arms to Israel is unlawful and makes Britain complicit in breaches of international law by Israel.

Both Britain and the United States chide Iran and Syria for privately supporting Hezbollah, while they both publicly support Israel.

The British government, said The Guardian report, last year approved 22.5m pounds ($42m) worth of arms-related exports to Israel, almost twice the amount in 2004. The U.S. presently provides $3 billion worth of aid to Israel each year, the majority of it for the purchase of arms.

Meantime, British Ministers are also facing possible legal action over the use of British airfields by the U.S. planes carrying bombs. The government has insisted the planes will coninue to be allowed to land and refuel, despite the controversy, but future flights will be accommodated at military airports, rather than civilian fields.

The flights are believed to be carrying 'bunker buster' bombs, with depleted uranium warheads. A Glasgow-based human rights lawyer, Aamer Anwar, said the government's actions violated the European human rights convention, the Geneva convention, and the International Criminal Court Act 2001.