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The group said it found no evidence that Hamas fighters used Palestinian civilians as human shields - a key Israeli claim - in the area at the time of the attacks it researched.

On the same day, at about 7.30am, Israeli artillery shells began falling near the main compound of the UN Relief and Works Agency in Gaza City, where 700 civilians were sheltering. UN staff made repeated telephone calls to the Israeli military asking them to stop but, at about 10am, six shells hit the compound, three of which contained white phosphorus. The warehouse was hit, causing at least $10m of damage, and it continued to burn for 12 days.The Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, said at the time that "Hamas fired from the UNRWA site". But the UN has always denied there were any militants in the compound or firing from the compound.In another case, on 17 January, an artillery shell that had already discharged its white phosphorus hit a UN school in Beit Lahiya, where 1,600 civilians were sheltering. It killed two brothers in a classroom and severely injured their mother and cousin.

Mr. Topolanek’s comments during a speech to the European Parliament underscored unresolved differences.

Mr. Topolanek’s remarks were considered impolitic, with the German leader of the Socialist group in the European Parliament, Martin Schulz, telling him, “You have not understood what the task of the E.U. presidency is,” and describing his comments as “not the level on which the E.U. ought to be operating with the United States.”

A Czech spokesman said that Mr. Topolanek meant to say that the European Union would be on the way to hell if it increased its own spending too much, rather than predicting that the United States was doomed.

Mr. Topolanek is not alone in his concern that Mr. Obama’s stimulus package, which will push the United States budget deficit this year to 10 percent or more of gross domestic product, will put a huge strain on global financial markets. German officials have also criticized the evolving American program, and many other European nations have declined to create fiscal stimulus programs anywhere near as large as that of the United States, arguing that too much extra money will lead quickly to inflation.