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Oil prices jumped after the surprise weekend attack on Israel by Hamas and the Israeli response risked stoking instability in the petroleum-rich Middle East.
Brent crude futures, the global benchmark, rose 3.1% to just over $87 a barrel. U.S. marker West Texas Intermediate added 3.4% to about $85.50 a barrel. The prices rises came as Israeli troops engaged in fierce fighting early Monday to regain control of swaths of the country’s south after Hamas militants flooded in from Gaza.
Analysts said the conflagration was unlikely to have any immediate effect on the availability of oil, but that traders were anxious about the danger of a broader conflict in one of the world’s biggest crude-producing regions. Iranian security officials helped plan Hamas’s surprise attack on Israel and gave the green light for the assault at a meeting in Beirut last Monday, The Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday.
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