Oil and Brent prices rise on Middle East tensions

At the time of writing (13:52 CET), the price of US crude oil, also known as WTI, rose by 3.56%up to 77.39 dollars per barrel (71.47 euros), while Brent advanced 3.08%, to 80.48 dollars (74.36 euros), at a time when tensions in the Middle East are causing market volatility.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has vowed revenge on Israel for the killing of Hamas’s political chief in an assassination which threatens to aggravate the conflictKhamenei said Israel had “prepared a harsh punishment” following the killing of Ismail Haniyeh in a pre-dawn airstrike in the Iranian capital Tehran on Wednesday.

“We consider his revenge as our duty“Khamenei said in a statement posted on his official website, calling Haniyeh “a dear guest in our house.”

His comments came after Hamas firmly blames Israel of the attack. In a statement, the group said Haniyeh was killed “in a Zionist airstrike on his residence in Tehran after he participated in the inauguration of Iran’s new president.”

“Hamas declares the great Palestinian people and the peoples of the Arab and Islamic nations and all the free peoples of the world to be martyrs, to the leader brother Ismail Haniyeh“the statement said. Israel had promised kill Haniyeh and other Hamas leaders for the group’s attack on Israel on October 7.