European Union leaders repeated their condemnation of Israel for killing Hamas leader Ahmed Yassin, hours after the United States vetoed a UN resolution denouncing the assassination.
In a statement issued at the end of a summit, the leaders of the EU's 25 current and future states said the bloc had "consistently opposed extra-judicial killings".
Washington, alone among major powers in not condemning this week's assassination as an extrajudicial killing, rejected the resolution by Arab nations because it did not also denounce Yassin's group Hamas for suicide bombings in Israel.
The US "no" vote killed the resolution because it is one of the five permanent members of the council with veto power. Britain, Germany and Romania abstained after Algeria, negotiating for Arab nations, rejected an amendment they wanted that would have condemned "atrocities" against Israelis.
The EU leaders said they had "repeatedly condemned terrorist atrocities against Israelis and recognised Israel's right to protect its citizens against terrorist attacks", but Yassin's killing had deepened the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
"The present cycle of retaliatory violence has...inflamed the situation and is taking the parties even further from a negotiated settlement," they said.
The Minister for Foreign Affairs , Mr Cowen, said one of the problems with UN resolutions on the Middle East was that - to be passed - they had to include a condemnation of suicide bombings.
"Not having that in the resolution brought the problem," he told a news conference.
The EU leaders also said in their statement that they would not recognise any unilateral change in the borders Israel had before the 1967 Middle East war.
Israel is building a barrier in the West Bank it says is vital to keep out Palestinian suicide bombers. The Palestinians call it a land-grab that deprives them of territory they want for a state.