SINGAPORE: Crude oil prices turned mixed in Asia on Friday as geopolitical tensions in the Middle East heated up following multiple Israeli air strikes in the Gaza Strip, analysts said.
New York's main contract, light sweet crude for delivery in December shed two cents to $85.43 a barrel in the afternoon while Brent North Sea crude for January delivery was up 12 cents to $108.13.
Tensions in the oil-rich Middle East showed no signs of abating Friday after Israeli war planes dropped bombs on the Gaza Strip including several on Gaza City, rattling traders, analysts said.
"I think the Middle East tension is still in traders' mind, it's giving it a bit of a bounce," said Justin Harper, market strategist for IG Markets Singapore.
The Hamas interior ministry estimated 130 strikes overnight till earlier Friday as AFP correspondents in Gaza City reported multiple raids.
Hamas emergency services put the current death toll at 19 Palestinians, several of them children, with a further 235 people injured.
The Israeli army said it had carried out 466 air strikes since it launched "Operation Pillar of Defence" on Wednesday afternoon with the targeted killing of Hamas commander Ahmed Jaabari.
But a temporary truce has been called during a visit Friday by Egyptian Prime Minister Hisham Qandil, a senior Israeli official told AFP.
Weak economic data out of the United States and Europe also weighed down on prices, analysts said.
Official data showed the 17-nation eurozone was already back in recession in the third-quarter, hit by the long and debilitating debt crisis that has ravaged the region.
In the US, the Labor Department said Thursday that weekly jobless claims surged 78,000 in one week largely due to people in the northeast being forced out of their jobs in the wake of superstorm Sandy.
Wall Street was unable to provide much cheer, with the three main indexes all ending in the red, while dealers continued to fret over the approaching fiscal cliff of tax hikes and spending cuts due to come into effect on January 1.
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