• WTI price jumps above $78.00 in Thursday’s early Asian session. 
• Rising Middle East tensions and falling US inventories boost the price of WTI. 
• The weaker demand in China might cap the WTI’s upside. 

West Texas Intermediate (WTI), the US crude oil benchmark, is trading around $78.00 on Thursday. WTI price edges higher amid the fear of wider geopolitical risks after the assassination of a Hamas leader in Iran, and a sharp fall in US crude inventories. 

Oil traders assessed the impact after the killing of a Hamas leader in Iran. Ismail Haniyeh was killed in Iran's capital after attending the new president's inauguration, the militant group said. Iranian officials and Hamas have blamed Israel for the strike that killed Haniyeh, per the CBS News. This headline raises concerns about unstable oil supply, which underpins the WTI price. 

"Overnight developments and elevated geopolitical risk merely provide temporary reprieve for oil benchmarks. Unless oil and gas infrastructure is hit, the latest spike is unlikely to last,” Gaurav Sharma, an independent oil analyst, told Reuters.