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Iran has warned that the intensified war in Gaza and the growing number of civilian casualties will “inevitably” lead to an expansion of the Hamas-Israel war.
“Due to the expansion of the intensity of the war against Gaza's civilian residents, expansion of the scope of the war has become inevitable,” Iranian media quoted Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian as telling his Qatari counterpart Sheikh Mohammed Bin Abdulrahman Al Thani in a telephone conversation on Thursday.
The Iranian and Qatari officials “vehemently condemned the Israeli regime's attacks on Gaza's civilians and voiced deep concern regarding the humanitarian situation in the coastal sliver,” Mehr News Agency and Press TV reported.
“The officials exchanged opinions concerning the available means of cessation of the Israeli regime's savage aggression, immediate implementation of a ceasefire, and continuous transfer of humanitarian supplies to Gaza's war-hit and besieged civilians,” according to Iranian media.
Despite the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, the world’s most important oil-producing region, oil prices have given up all the gains since the start of the war in early October, as market participants shifted their focus on concerns about the global economy.
This week, oil prices fell to their lowest level in two months, and were on track early on Friday to post a third consecutive week of declines. The change in direction reflects a change in traders’ focus as concern about supply security in the Middle East dissipates, to be replaced by a focus on oil demand prospects.
Commenting on this week’s oil price declines, ING’s strategists Warren Patterson and Ewa Manthey wrote in a note on Friday,
“We believe that the scale of the sell-off in oil is exaggerated given that fundamentals are still tight at least in the short term.”
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“However, fundamentals are not as bullish as originally anticipated with Russian oil exports edging higher, whilst refinery margins have also been weakening.”
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
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Tsvetana is a writer for Oilprice.com with over a decade of experience writing for news outlets such as iNVEZZ and SeeNews.