New Delhi:

In another setback to President Bashar al-Assad’s hold on power, the Syrian government forces have lost control of Daraa city, widely regarded as the birthplace of Syria’s 2011 civil uprising.

At the interbank foreign exchange, the rupee opened at 84.06 against the greenback and traded in a tight range. In initial trade it touched 84.05, registering a rise of 5 paisa over its previous close. File
| Photo Credit: Reuters

The rupee rebounded from its all-time low levels and appreciated 5 paise to 84.05 against the U.S. dollar in morning trade on Monday (October 14, 2024), weighed down by elevated crude oil prices and strong dollar as risk-off sentiment gripped the markets.

Forex traders said there have been significant foreign fund outflows and crude oil prices have surged by nearly 10%, fueled by Hurricane Milton’s impact on U.S. production along with the tensions in the Middle East between Israel and Iran.

However, the Reserve Bank of India’s intervention, backed by record-high reserves, has supported the local unit at lower levels.

At the interbank foreign exchange, the rupee opened at 84.06 against the greenback and traded in a tight range. In initial trade it touched 84.05, registering a rise of 5 paisa over its previous close.

On Friday (October 11, 2024), the rupee fell 12 paise to a record low of 84.10 against the U.S. dollar.

“Indian equities saw substantial outflows, with FIIs offloading nearly $6.4 billion in October, as risk-off sentiment gripped the markets. Adding to the strain, crude oil prices have surged by nearly 10%,” CR Forex Advisors MD-Amit Pabari said.

Mr. Pabari further added that the Reserve Bank of India’s intervention, backed by record-high reserves and strong resistance at the 84.10 level could trigger a pullback below 84 as FII outflows begin to ease.

“Thus, in the short term, we expect the USD-INR pair to trade in a range of 83.90 to 84.10,” he said.

Meanwhile, the dollar index, which gauges the greenback’s strength against a basket of six currencies, was trading 0.13% higher at 103.02.

Brent crude, the global oil benchmark, declined 1.21% to $78.08 per barrel.

On the domestic equity market front, Sensex advanced 461.97 points, or 0.57%, to 81,843.33 points. The Nifty rose 140.40 points, or 0.56%, to 25,104.65 points.

Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) were net sellers in the capital markets on Friday (October 11, 2024) as they offloaded shares worth ₹ 4,162.66 crore, according to exchange data.

Meanwhile, “India’s forex reserves dropped by $ 3.709 billion to $ 701.176 billion for the week ended October 4,” the Reserve Bank of India said on Friday (October 11, 2024).

In the previous reporting week, the reserves had jumped by $ 12.588 billion to an all-time high of $ 704.885 billion.

The rupee fell 11 paise, revisiting its all-time low of 84.09 (provisional) against the US dollar, tracking a weak domestic equity market and continued FII outflows.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

The rupee on Friday (October 11, 2024) fell 11 paise, revisiting its all-time low of 84.09 (provisional) against the US dollar, tracking a weak domestic equity market and continued FII outflows.

The situation in the Middle East continues to be volatile and might keep oil prices high and the rupee weak in the short term, according to forex traders.

At the interbank foreign exchange, the rupee opened at 83.97 against the dollar, 1 paisa higher than previous day’s close. It rose to the day’s high of 83.96 but tumbled to 84.10 before revisiting its all-time low of 84.09 (provisional), 11 paise lower than its previous close.

The domestic unit had closed at 83.98 on Thursday.

“After keeping it in a range below 83.99 since August 8, 2024, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) finally allowed rupee to weaken past 84 as FPIs who have emerged as big sellers in equities continued to buy dollar to take their money out of the country,” said Anil Kumar Bhansali, Head of Treasury and Executive Director, Finrex Treasury Advisors LLP.

“We can now expect the rupee to move to 84.25 in the short term. Importers will continue buying at all dips and exporters may now hold their exports with a stop below 83.95. The Iran/Israel/Lebanon news also does not seem good and could keep oil strong and the rupee weak,” he said.

Meanwhile, the dollar index, which gauges the greenback’s strength against a basket of six currencies, was down 0.09 per cent to 102.89 points.

Brent crude, the international benchmark, was down 0.57% to $78.95 per barrel in futures trade.

In the domestic equity market, the 30-share BSE Sensex was down 230.05 points to close at 81,381.36, while Nifty declined 34.20 points to settle at 24,964.25.

Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) were net sellers in the capital markets on Thursday, as they offloaded shares worth ₹4,926.61 crore, according to exchange data.

Washington:

U.S. Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris said on Thursday that de-escalation was needed in the Middle East, a region on edge for months amid Israel’s wars in Gaza and Lebanon.

WHY IT’S IMPORTANT

A ceasefire remains elusive in Gaza and Lebanon and the region is bracing for an Israeli response to an Iranian missile attack last week carried out in retaliation for Israel’s military action in Lebanon. No one in Israel was killed in Iran’s attack, and Washington called it ineffective.

For Gaza, President Joe Biden put forward a three-phase ceasefire plan on May 31, which has run into obstacles for months over Israeli demands of keeping presence in a corridor on Gaza’s border with Egypt and over differences in exchanges of Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners.

In Lebanon, Washington and Paris put forward a 21-day ceasefire proposal in late September that Israel rejected.

KEY QUOTES

“We have got to reach a ceasefire,” Harris told reporters as she departed Las Vegas, while commenting on the situations in Gaza and Lebanon. “We’ve got to de-escalate.”

Washington’s occasional condemnation of Israel over the war’s civilian death toll has mostly been verbal with no substantive change in policy.

CONTEXT

The latest bloodshed in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict was triggered on Oct. 7, 2023, when Palestinian Hamas militants attacked Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking about 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.

Israel’s subsequent military assault on Gaza has killed almost 42,000 Palestinians, according to local health officials, and displaced nearly the entire population, while causing a hunger crisis and leading to genocide allegations at the World Court that Israel denies.

Israel’s recent operations in Lebanon have killed hundreds, wounded thousands and displaced over a million. Israel says it is targeting Lebanese Iran-backed Hezbollah militants.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

World oil prices rallied more than 2% on Monday (October 7, 2024) as tensions escalated in the crude-rich Middle East one year after the deadly Hamas attacks on Israel.

European stock markets mostly rose after more big gains in Asia as China’s stimulus boost, a strengthening U.S. economy and the outlook for interest rates in major economies outweighed geopolitical unrest.

‘Wild ride’

Brent North Sea crude, a benchmark oil contract, came close to surpassing $80 per barrel on Monday for the first time since late August.

Oil futures have experienced recent volatility, with Brent surging above $80 in the late northern hemisphere summer on Middle East tensions, before slumping under $70 last month on concerns about weak demand.

Beyond Middle East tensions, oil is also being supported by hopes of stronger Chinese demand after Beijing recently announced major stimulus measures to boost its flagging economy.

Offsetting price support is an expectation in the market that the OPEC+ group of oil producing nations could reverse output cuts, according to analysts.

“The oil market is on a wild ride, caught in a whirlwind of geopolitical tension, OPEC+ strategy shifts, and a slowdown from its biggest customer, China,” noted independent analyst Stephen Innes.

Israel on Monday marked the one-year anniversary of the October 7 attack, the deadliest in its history and one that sparked a devastating war in Gaza that has since expanded into Lebanon.

Israel is preparing its retaliation against Iran over its missile attack last week, raising fears of all-out regional war.

Stocks higher

There were sizeable gains Monday for the Tokyo and Hong Kong stock markets, with the former boosted by a softer yen supporting Japanese exporters.

Hong Kong extended a rally fuelled by China’s plans to boost its growth, notably by supporting its battered property sector and thanks to interest-rate cuts.

Shanghai was closed for a holiday.

Concerns over Europe’s biggest economy, Germany, weighed on Frankfurt’s stock market Monday, while London and Paris nudged higher nearing the half-way stage.

Official data showed Germany’s industrial orders fell more than expected in August, adding to fears that the country will end the year in recession.

A strong U.S. jobs report Friday increased expectations that the Federal Reserve would avoid consecutive big cuts to interest rates.

All three main indices on Wall Street rallied ahead of the weekend, while U.S. inflation data this week will be closely watched for further clues on the Fed’s thinking heading into its next call over rates.

Israel and Hezbollah exchanged more fire ahead of the first anniversary of the Hamas attack, which triggered a war in Gaza and further escalated tensions in the Middle East.

Smoke rises in Beirut’s southern suburbs during sunset, after Israeli air strikes, amid ongoing hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, as seen from Sin El Fil, Lebanon, October 6, 2024.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Israeli air attacks battered Beirut’s southern suburbs overnight and early on Sunday (October 6, 2024), the most intense bombardment of the Lebanese capital since Israel sharply escalated its campaign against Iran-backed group Hezbollah last month.

During the night, the blasts sent booms across Beirut and sparked flashes of red and white for nearly 30 minutes visible from several kilometres away.

It was the single biggest attack of Israel’s assault on Beirut so far, witnesses and military analysts on local TV channels said.

On Sunday, a grey haze hung over the city and rubble was strewn across streets in the southern suburbs, while smoke columns rose over the area.

“Last night was the most violence of all the previous nights. Buildings were shaking around us and at first I thought it was an earthquake. There were dozens of strikes — we couldn’t count them all — and the sounds were deafening,” said Hanan Abdullah, a resident of the Burj al-Barajneh area in Beirut’s southern suburbs.

Videos posted on social media, which Reuters could not immediately verify, showed fresh damage to the highway that runs from Beirut airport through its southern suburbs into downtown.

Israel said its air force had “conducted a series of targeted strikes on a number of weapons storage facilities and terrorist infrastructure sites belonging to the Hezbollah terrorist organization in the area of Beirut”.

Lebanese authorities did not immediately say what the missiles had hit or what damage they caused.

This weekend’s intense bombardment came just ahead of the anniversary of the October 7 attack by Palestinian militant group Hamas on southern Israel in which some 1,200 people were killed and more than 250 taken hostage, according to Israeli figures.

The target of Israel’s airstrikes across Lebanon and its ground invasion in the south of the country is the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah, Iran’s chief ally in the region. The assault has killed hundreds of people including civilians and has displaced 1.2 million, Lebanese officials say.

For days Israel has bombed the Beirut suburb of Dahiyeh — considered a stronghold for Hezbollah but also home to thousands of ordinary Lebanese, Palestinian and Syrian refugees — killing its leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah on September 27.

A Lebanese security source said on Saturday that Hashem Safieddine, Nasrallah’s potential successor, had been out of contact since Friday, after an Israeli airstrike on Thursday near the city’s international airport that was reported to have targeted him.

Israel continues to bomb the area of the strike, preventing rescue workers from reaching it, Lebanese security sources said.

Hezbollah has not commented on Safieddine.

His loss would be another blow to the group and its patron Iran. Israeli strikes across the region in the past year, sharply accelerated in recent weeks, have devastated Hezbollah’s leadership.

GAZA WAR

Israel’s war in Gaza, launched after the Oct. 7 attacks and aimed at eliminating Hamas, another Iran-backed group, has killed nearly 42,000 people, Palestinian authorities say. The coastal enclave lies in ruins.

At least 26 people were killed and 93 others wounded when Israeli airstrikes hit a mosque and a school sheltering displaced people in the Gaza Strip early on Sunday, the Hamas-run Gaza government media office said.

Hezbollah began firing rockets at Israel a day after the Oct. 7 attacks and after Israel had begun bombing Gaza, saying it was acting in solidarity with the Palestinian group.

Cross-border fire continued between Israel and Hezbollah for months, but were mostly limited to the Israel-Lebanon border area before the recent upsurge.

Israel says it stepped up its assault on Hezbollah last month to enable the safe return of tens of thousands of citizens to homes in northern Israel, bombarded by the group since last Oct. 8.

Israeli authorities said on Saturday that nine Israeli soldiers had been killed in southern Lebanon so far.

In northern Israel, air raid sirens sounded on Sunday and the Israeli military said it had intercepted rockets fired from Lebanese territory.

Iran has signalled it does not want a direct war with Israel but has launched responses on occasion to Israeli attacks. It fired a barrage of ballistic missiles at Israel on Tuesday that did little damage.

Israel has been weighing options for its response.

Washington:

Republican White House hopeful Donald Trump said Friday he believes Israel should strike Iran’s nuclear facilities in response to the Islamic republic’s recent missile barrage.

The former president, speaking at a campaign event in North Carolina, referred to a question posed to Democratic President Joe Biden this week about the possibility of Israel targeting Iran’s nuclear program.

“They asked him, what do you think about Iran, would you hit Iran? And he goes, ‘As long as they don’t hit the nuclear stuff.’ That’s the thing you want to hit, right?” Trump told a town hall style event in Fayetteville, near a major US military base.

Biden was asked on Wednesday whether he would support strikes against Iranian nuclear sites and the US president told reporters: “The answer is no.”

“I think he’s got that one wrong,” Trump said Friday, in response to a participant’s question about the issue. “Isn’t that what you’re supposed to hit? I mean, it’s the biggest risk we have, nuclear weapons,” he said.

“When they asked him that question, the answer should have been, hit the nuclear first, and worry about the rest later,” Trump added.

“If they’re going to do it, they’re going to do it. But we’ll find out whatever their plans are.”

Biden on Wednesday expressed his opposition to such strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities, in response to the firing of nearly 200 Iranian missiles towards Israel.

“We’ll be discussing with the Israelis what they’re going to do,” he said, adding that all G7 members agree Israel has “a right to respond, but they should respond in proportion.”

Trump, locked in a tooth-and-nail presidential election battle with US Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, has spoken little about the recent escalation in tensions in the Middle East.

He issued a scathing statement this week, holding Biden and Harris responsible for the crisis.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Israel carried out another series of punishing airstrikes Friday (October 4, 2024), hitting suburban Beirut and cutting off the main border crossing between Lebanon and Syria for tens of thousands of people fleeing the Israeli bombardment of the Hezbollah militant group.

The overnight blasts in Beirut’s southern suburbs sent huge plumes of smoke and flames into the night sky and shook buildings kilometres away in the Lebanese capital. Additional strikes sent people running for cover in streets littered with rubble in the Dahiyeh neighbourhood, where at least one building was levelled and cars were burned out.

Follow Israel strike LIVE updates on October 4

The Israeli military said it targeted Hezbollah’s central intelligence headquarters around midnight. It did not say who it was aiming for or if any militants were killed in that strike, but it claimed to have killed 100 Hezbollah fighters in the last 24 hours.

Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reported more than 10 consecutive airstrikes in the area. Some 1,400 Lebanese, including Hezbollah fighters and civilians, have been killed and some 1.2 million driven from their homes since Israel escalated its strikes in late September aiming to cripple Hezbollah and push it away from the countries’ shared border.

Meanwhile, Hezbollah launched about 100 rockets into Israel on Friday, the Israel military said.

The Israeli military also said that a strike in Beirut the day before killed Mohammed Rashid Skafi, the head of Hezbollah’s communications division. The military said in a statement that Skafi was “a senior Hezbollah terrorist who was responsible for the communications unit since 2000” and was “closely affiliated” with high-up Hezbollah officials.

Thursday’s strike along the Lebanon-Syria border, about 50 kilometers (30 miles) east of Beirut, led to the closure of the road near the busy Masnaa Border Crossing — the first time it has been cut off since Hezbollah and Israel began trading fire almost a year ago.

Israel said it targeted the crossing because it was being used by Hezbollah to transport military equipment across the border. It said fighter jets had struck a tunnel used to smuggle weapons from Iran and other proxies into Lebanon.

Hezbollah is believed to have received much of its weaponry through Syria from Iran, its main backer.

Associated Press video footage showed two huge craters on each side of the road. People got out of cars, unable to pass, carrying bags of their possessions as they crossed on foot. More than 250,000 Syrians and 82,000 Lebanese have fled across the border into Syria during the escalation of the past two weeks. There are a half-dozen crossings between the two countries, and most remain open.

Israel launched its ground escalation in Lebanon on Tuesday, and its forces have been clashing with Hezbollah militants in a narrow strip along the border. Israel has vowed to put an end to Hezbollah fire into northern Israel, after nearly a year of exchanges between the two sides that drove tens of thousands of people from their homes on both sides of the border. Israeli strikes over the past two weeks killed some of Hezbollah’s key members, including longtime leader Hassan Nasrallah.

On Thursday, Israel warned people to evacuate communities in southern Lebanon, including areas beyond the buffer zone declared by the United Nations after Israel and Hezbollah fought a monthlong war in 2006.

Israeli Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani told reporters Friday that the ground operations were limited, aimed at rooting out Hezbollah militants and making the border safe for northern residents of Israel to return to their homes, “First of all, our mission is to make sure they’re (Hezbollah) not there,” Shoshani said. “Afterwards we will talk about how we make sure they don’t come back.” Nine Israeli troops have been killed in close fighting in the area, which is saturated with arms and explosives, the military said.

Two more soldiers were killed and two were severely wounded by a drone attack in northern Israel, military officials said.

An umbrella group of Iranian-backed militias in Iraq calling itself the Islamic Resistance in Iraq said it carried out three drone strikes Friday in northern Israel. In recent months, the group has regularly claimed drone strikes launched at Israel, but the strikes have rarely landed.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, who was in Beirut on Friday to meet Lebanese officials, warned that if Israel carries out an attack on Iran, Tehran would retaliate more powerfully than it did this week when it launched at least 180 missiles into Israel in retaliation for Israeli strikes on Hezbollah.

The missile barrage amid a series of rapidly escalating attacks has threatened to push the Middle East closer to a regionwide war.

“If the Israeli entity takes any step or measure against us, our retaliation will be stronger than the previous one,” Araghchi said after meeting Lebanon’s parliament speaker, Nabih Berri.

In the Iranian capital, Tehran, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei led Friday prayers and delivered a speech in which he praised the country’s missile strikes on Israel and said Iran was prepared to conduct more strikes if needed.

He spoke to thousands of people at Tehran’s main prayer site, the Mosalla mosque, which was decorated with a huge Palestinian flag.

Hezbollah began firing into Israel the day after Hamas’ attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, in which the militants killed 1,200 people and took 250 others hostage. Since then, Israel’s campaign in Gaza in retaliation has killed more than 41,000 Palestinians, just over half them women and children, according to local health officials.

Meanwhile, Israel carried out its deadliest strike in the occupied West Bank since the Gaza war began, hitting a cafe in the Tulkarem refugee camp. At least 18 Palestinians were killed, the Palestinian Health Ministry said. Relatives said a family of four, including two children, were among the dead. The Israeli military said several Hamas militants were killed, including the group’s leader in the camp.

The Israeli military said Friday that militants in Gaza fired two rockets into Israeli territory, the first time Israel has seen rocket fire from the territory in a month.

The military said one of the rockets was intercepted by Israel’s Iron Dome missile-defense system and the other fell in an open area near a kibbutz across the border from Gaza. (AP) GSP

Beirut:

Former Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had agreed to a ceasefire shortly before he was killed in an air strike in Beirut last week, Lebanon Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib said today. Speaking to an American public broadcaster, Bou Habib said that they also informed the US and French representatives about the ceasefire decision.

Hassan Nasrallah was in a bunker in the southern suburb of Dahiyeh when it was hit by Israeli bombs on September 27. While Hezbollah’s statement confirming Nasrallah’s death did not say how exactly he was killed, Reuters said his body had no direct wounds and that it appeared the cause of death was blunt trauma from the force of the blast.

“He (Nasrallah) agreed, he agreed (to the ceasefire),” Bou Habib told PBS, adding that Lebanon had fully consented to the ceasefire after consulting with Hezbollah, and communicated this to the US and France.

“The Lebanese House Speaker, Mr Nabih Berri, consulted with Hezbollah and we informed the Americans and the French about the agreement. They told us that [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu also agreed to the statement issued by both presidents,” he said.

The United States, France, and other allies unveiled a 21-day ceasefire on September 25, after President Joe Biden and his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron, met on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York. But Netanyahu had rejected the ceasefire proposal a day later, ordering the military to continue “fighting with full force”.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Warned Hezbollah Chief To Flee

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had warned Nasrallah to flee Lebanon days before he was killed in the Israeli strike, Reuters reported on Wednesday. 

After the Hezbollah members were attacked with pagers on September 17, Khamenei had sent a message with an envoy to beseech Nasrallah to leave for Iran, citing intelligence reports that suggested Israel had operatives within Hezbollah and was planning to kill him, one of the sources, a senior Iranian official, told Reuters.

The messenger, the official said, was a senior Iranian Revolutionary Guards commander, Brigadier General Abbas Nilforoushan, who was also killed with Nasrallah in the bunker.

Israel on Tuesday began what it labelled as a “limited” ground incursion against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.

Over 1,900 people have so far been killed and about 9,000 injured in Lebanon since Hezbollah engaged in cross-border fire with Israel after Hamas attacked Israeli towns on October 7 last year, triggering a war in Gaza as well.