British Prime Minister Tony Blair, under pressure over his support for Washington's apparently unequivocal backing for Israel, is to seek a United Nations Security Council resolution "as early as possibly next week" to defuse the Middle East conflict, his spokesman said.

The use of a Scottish airport as a staging post for US planes to carry bunker-busting bombs for Israel brought renewed pressure on Blair, with his Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett saying she was "not happy" about it.

British officials told London newspapers that more stopovers at Prestwick airport for arms deliveries were in the pipeline with government blessing.

"It is a right we have always granted," an official in Blair's office was quoted as saying.

With international pressure mounting for a halt to the fighting, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice -- in Malaysia for an Asian foreign ministers' meeting -- was mulling plans to return to the Middle East.

But despite Asian and European Union calls for an immediate ceasefire, US President George W. Bush again warned against what he called a "fake peace", maintaining the stalling position adopted, against Arab protests, at an international conference in Rome on Wednesday.

Israel seized on the conference's failure to demand a ceasefire as a green light to press its offensive.

But on Friday that claim, already rejected by other delegates, was dismissed as "outrageous" by the United States.

"Any such statement is outrageous" said State Department spokesman Adam Ereli when asked about Israeli Justice Minister Haim Ramon's assertion that the Rome meeting earlier this week gave Israel "authorisation".

In the face of Hezbollah's fierce resistance and continued firing of missiles on northern Israel, the army said it would deploy Patriot anti-missile batteries near Israel's biggest city, Tel Aviv.

Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah said earlier this week that the stage of firing rockets only into northern Israel was over and there would be attacks deeper into Israel.

Israeli aircraft and artillery pounded south Lebanon early Friday killing six more civilians after sporadic clashes between Israeli troops and Shia militants of Hezbollah through the night.

The UN Security Council expressed shock over an Israeli attack on a UN observer post in Lebanon, which killed four peacekeepers, but with the US brooking no criticism of Israel made no condemnation in its statement.

"The Security Council is deeply shocked and distressed by the firing by the Israeli Defence Forces on a United Nations observer post in southern Lebanon on July 25," said the statement passed unanimously by the 15-nation council.

Tuesday's attack in the hilltop town of Khiam killed unarmed military observers from Austria, Canada, China and Finland. UN chief Kofi Annan said the raid was "apparently deliberate", a charge Israel denied.

Israel insists it will not halt its assault until the two soldiers held by Hezbollah are freed and the group's military wing has been disarmed.

It seized on the failure of a 15-nation conference in Rome to demand an immediate ceasefire as "authorisation" to press on.

But Finnish Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja, whose country currently holds the European Union presidency, said Israel had misread the conference's outcome.

"It is their interpretation and it is wrong," said Tuomioja, who was due in Lebanon on Friday.