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Mideast Situation Likely to Be More Complicated: Mubarak
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said on Sunday that the Middle East situation was "gravely worsening," expressing fear that it might become "more complicated and reach a point of no return."
Mubarak said that he had thought Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon might be "a man of peace," because the former general said that he wanted peace soon after assuming power in March.
But what has happened on the ground has proved the opposite, Mubarak was quoted as saying by Egypt's state-run Middle East News Agency.
"Israeli excessive use of force would not lead to peace at all and the situation will get more complicated after Israel's use of F-16 fighter jets," Mubarak said, stressing that fighter jets are used only to defend a country against external attacks.
Israeli fighter jets and helicopter gunships on Friday fired missiles at bases of the Force 17, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's personal guard, in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, killing 12 Palestinians and wounding scores of others.
The nearly eight months of clashes between the Israelis and Palestinians, sparked by Israeli violation of an Islamic holy site in East Jerusalem last September, have so far left more than 520 people dead, most of them Palestinians.
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