Financial Times - Raya Jalabi, Heba Saleh and James Shotter  / Israeli air strikes shake Beirut in expanding campaign against Hizbollah

• Israel’s military conducted multiple air strikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs overnight in one of its heaviest bombardments on the Lebanese capital in an intensifying campaign against armed group Hizbollah.

• Unconfirmed Israeli media reports suggested the strike targeted Hashem Safieddine, the heir apparent to Hassan Nasrallah, the Hizbollah leader killed in a massive strike on Dahiyeh last week. Safieddine, a fellow cleric and cousin of Nasrallah, was thought to have been groomed for the job in recent years. The Israeli military had no immediate comment.

• The blasts appeared on a similar scale to the waves of strikes that flattened at least six residential buildings in Dahiyeh, killing Nasrallah. Most of Dahiyeh’s hundreds of thousands of residents have fled the relentless Israeli bombardment in recent days.    

• Nearly 2,000 people have been killed in Israeli attacks on Lebanon since last October, the majority in the past two weeks, Lebanon’s health minister said. More than 1.2mn people have been displaced, triggering one of the worst crises for the country in decades.

   

Bloomberg - Yongchang Chin / Oil Set for Biggest Weekly Gain Since Early 2023 on Mideast Risk

• Oil steadied — following its biggest one-day jump in almost a year — as fears that Israel may decide to strike Iranian crude facilities in retaliation for a missile barrage kept the market on edge. 

• Brent traded below $78 a barrel after surging by 5% on Thursday as President Joe Biden said the US was discussing whether to support potential Israeli attacks on Iranian energy infrastructure. A US official said later the administration was still in talks with Israel and believed no decision had been taken yet. West Texas Intermediate was under $74. 

• Crude has soared by about 8% this week, the most since early last year, as the escalation of hostilities raised the possibility Middle East oil supplies could be disrupted. Israel and Iran, as well as Tehran’s proxies in Lebanon, Gaza and Yemen have been facing off for the past year, stoking fears of an all-out conflict that could drag in other countries.

• There are “fears that Israel will target Iran’s oil production capabilities, so as to hit Iran where it hurts – its pocket,” said Vishnu Varathan, the Asia head of economics and strategy at Mizuho Bank Ltd. in Singapore. While prices have surged, oil likely hasn’t fully priced in an all-out war, he said.

   

South China Morning Post - Sylvia Main Hong Kong and Mia Nulimaimaiti / Foreign investors ‘seek shelter’ in undervalued Chinese assets, but scepticism remains

• Chinese assets are witnessing fund inflows from foreign investors, driven by Beijing’s recent large-scale stimulus measures and efforts to mitigate potential risks from the pace of interest rate cuts by the US Federal Reserve and the escalating conflicts in the Middle East, analysts said. 

• With Chinese markets closed due to the ongoing “golden week” National Day holiday, a surge in Hong Kong stocks had been pushed by the influx of foreign capital, especially from passive index-based foreign institutions that have played an important role in the market liquidity, Huatai Securities said on Thursday.

• Conflicts in the Middle East and the escalation of the war in Ukraine have heightened risks and called for diversification for investors, she added.

• If China’s asset pricing followed its return on equity trend, driven by anticipated policy improvements, the forward price-to-book ratio could increase from 1.36 to 1.57, according to Thursday’s note from Huatai Securities, which noted that mid-October presented a window for a more aggressive market strategy.

   

Politico - Eva Hartog / Ukraine reveals death toll of prisoners in Russian captivity

• At least 177 Ukrainian prisoners have died in Russian captivity since the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion of the country, according to new figures by Ukraine’s Defense Ministry.

• Regular prison swaps between Moscow and Kyiv have seen the return of some 3,600 Ukrainian prisoners of war and deported citizens. But thousands are still believed to be in Russian hands.

• “Some public figures in the Russian Federation have explicitly encouraged inhumane treatment, and even killing, of Ukrainian POWs,” the report said. It added it had recorded 11 Ukrainian deaths plus an unspecified number of suicide attempts and “one documented case of suicide reportedly because of repeated acts of torture" since March 2023.

• The Geneva Conventions, the rules encoding the treatment of POWs, states that countries at war should  allow independent monitors unlimited access to captives and permit them to send or receive letters. Russia has a spotty record when it comes to both, the U.N. has said.

   

Our opinion reads for today:

• Foreign Affairs - Aluf Benn / Israel’s Paradox of Defeat
• Project Syndicate - Indermit Gill / Creating a “Goldilocks” Business Climate
• The Guardian – Rachel Reeves / Today, with our £22bn pledge for carbon capture, Labour’s green revolution for Britain begins
• Al Jazeera - Somdeep Sen / ‘Dahiyeh Doctrine’ returns to Dahiyeh