Lebanon Financial News

Investing.com-- Oil prices rose in Asian trade on Friday as focus remained on supply disruptions in the Middle East, although gains were somewhat limited in anticipation of key U.S. payrolls data.

The dead included nine children, an official told Reuters.

By Andrew Hayley and Jeslyn Lerh

Investing.com-- Oil prices rose slightly in Asian trade on Thursday, extending strong gains from the prior session as the shutdown of Libya’s biggest oilfield fueled more concerns over tight supplies.

mourners broke into sobs as they huddled around defiant family members of slain Hamas deputy Saleh al-Aruri in his village in the occupied West Bank Wednesday, a day after his death in Lebanon. Aruri, exiled from his village Arura since he was released from an Israeli jail in 2010, was killed in a drone strike on a southern Beirut suburb that Lebanese officials said was carried out by Israel.

Israeli strike killed the deputy leader of Palestinian militant group Hamas. The day after loud blasts ripped through the district from the drone attack that killed Saleh al-Aruri, armed men of Hezbollah were standing guard in the mainly Shiite Muslim area that is their stronghold. Local residents said they were surprised to learn that their busy street housed the secretive Hamas bureau in a non-descript three-storey building nestled next to a pharmacy and a sweets shop. Israel has not claimed the deadly attack but Hamas, the group behind the October 7 attack that sparked the Gaza war, and Lebanese officials have no doubt it was Israel who killed Aruri and six Hamas operatives. Beirut's southern suburbs have long been a stronghold of the Iran-backed Hezbollah armed group, but it is also an overcrowded residential area packed with civilians, shops and restaurants. «No one knew that there was a Hamas office here,» said Ahmed, 40, who works in the nearby sweets shop.

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BEIRUT : Israel was on high alert for an escalation with Hezbollah on Wednesday after one of the top leaders of the Palestinian Hamas was killed in a strike in Beirut that was widely blamed on Israel and heightened the risk of a broader Middle East conflict. The killing of Saleh Arouri, the most senior Hamas member slain since the war in Gaza erupted nearly three months ago, provided a morale boost for Israelis still reeling from Hamas' Oct. 7 attack as the militants put up stiff resistance in Gaza and continue to hold scores of hostages.

AFP. A high-level security official told the agency that the leader was killed along with his bodyguards in the strike by Israel, which vowed to destroy Hamas after the movement's unprecedented October 7 attacks on Israel. Israel has previously announced the killing in Gaza of Hamas commanders and officials during the war, but Aruri is the most high-profile figure to be killed, and his death came in the first strike on the Lebanese capital since hostilities began.

Gold prices held steady on Wednesday as investors looked forward to minutes of the last Federal Reserve policy meeting due later in the day for more clarity on its next moves, while a stronger dollar kept bullion's gains in check. FUNDAMENTALS * Spot gold was up 0.1% at $2,061.49 per ounce, as of 0132 GMT. U.S.

Asian shares extended a global sell-off on Wednesday while the dollar held gains as market optimism about early and aggressive U.S. interest rate cuts ebbed ahead of the release of Fed minutes and jobs data. MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan fell 1.1% after a 1.0% drop the previous day in a sluggish start of the new year.

Lebanon's Hezbollah group says top Hamas official Saleh Arouri was killed on Tuesday in an explosion in a southern Beirut suburb. Arouri, one of the founders of Hamas' military wing, had headed the group's presence in the West Bank. Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had threatened to kill him even before the Hamas-Israel war began on October 7. Israeli officials declined to comment.

Yoav Gallant hinted on Tuesday that the country had retaliated in Iraq, Yemen and Iran for attacks carried out against it as the war with Hamas-led Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip widens to other areas of the region. «We are in a multi-front war and are coming under attack from seven theatres: Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Judea and Samaria (West Bank), Iraq, Yemen and Iran.

Vatican City: Pope Francis said in his Christmas message on Monday that children dying in wars, including in Gaza, are the "little Jesuses of today" and that Israeli strikes there were reaping an "appalling harvest" of innocent civilians. In his Christmas Day "Urbi et Orbi" (to the city and world) address, Francis also called the Oct. 7 attack on Israel by Hamas militants "abominable" and again appealed for the release of around 100 hostages still being held in Gaza.

By Philip Pullella

killed over 19,000 people and left tens of thousands injured in Turkey and Syria. An earthquake of magnitude 7.8 centered in the Pazarcik district jolted Kahramanmaras and hit several provinces, including Gaziantep, Sanliurfa, Diyarbakir, Adana, Adiyaman, Malatya, Osmaniye, Hatay, and Kilis. Later in the day, an earthquake of 7.6 magnitude centred in Kahramanmaras's Elbistan district jolted the region.

Benjamin Netanyahu expressed grief over the deaths of Israeli soldiers who were killed over the weekend amid the ongoing war with terror group Hamas, Times of Israel reported. He also denied the reports that US prevented Israel from carrying out military operations against Hezbollah.

The World Bank says the ripple effects of the war in Gaza are likely to knock Lebanon’s fragile economy back into recession

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oil prices rise given the current geopolitical uncertainty exacerbated by recent attacks on commercial vessels in the Red Sea.“It’s very traditional that oil prices and gasoline prices bottom around the middle of December,” said Tom Kloza, global head of energy analysis with the Oil Price Information Service.“Then after that … the market will grab pieces of news to justify price advances.”Houthi strikes on commercial vessels in the Red Sea are part of the Yemen-based group’s attacks on Israel and countries trading with it. Israel is fighting Hamas in Gaza following that group’s deadly Oct.

ground invasion. At the same time it is evacuating villages near its border with Lebanon for fear that a second front could open in the north. Hizbullah, an Iran-backed Shia militant group based in Lebanon, has exchanged fire with Israel.