Mideast Stocks: Gulf Markets Tumble As Israel-Iran Conflict Escalates

Stock markets in the Gulf ended lower on Sunday as Israel and Iran exchanged attacks, raising concerns about a potential broader Middle East conflict. Israel said it had targeted Iran's nuclear facilities, ballistic missile factories and military commanders in strikes that started on Friday, in what it warned would be a prolonged operation to prevent Tehran from building an atomic weapon. 

Iran responded by launching attacks on Israel and calling off Sunday's nuclear talks that the United States said were the only way to halt Israel's bombing.

Saudi Arabia's benchmark index finished 1% lower as stocks fell across the board, weighed down by a 1.5% fall in Al Rajhi Bank and a 3.1% decrease in the country's biggest lender Saudi National Bank.

However, oil giant Saudi Aramco advanced 1.8%.

Oil prices jumped on Friday and settled 7% higher as Israel and Iran traded air strikes, feeding investor worries that the combat could widely disrupt oil exports from the Middle East.

Israel late on Saturday attacked Iranian energy infrastructure including an offshore installation on the South Pars gas field which Iran shares with Qatar and is the source of most of the gas produced in Iran, stoking fears of potential disruption to the region's energy exports.

The Qatari benchmark declined 3.2% - its biggest intraday fall since April - with all its constituents in negative territory including the Gulf's biggest lender Qatar National Bank, which concluded 4.2% lower.

Elsewhere, Qatar Gas Transport Nakilat dropped 3.3%. Among other fallers, Kuwait's bourse plummeted 4.6%, with Kuwait Finance House losing 3.7%. Shares in Jazeera Airways nosedived 18.4% as airlines avoided the airspace over most of the region.

Outside the Gulf, Egypt's blue-chip index sank 4.6%, its biggest fall in about 14 months, dragged down by a 4.3% decline in Commercial International Bank and a 12.4% plunge in investment bank EFG Holding.

SAUDI ARABIA declined 1% to 10,732

QATAR slid 3.2% to 10,287

EGYPT down 4.6% to 31,016

BAHRAIN lost 0.8% to 1,902

OMAN fell 0.9% at 4,504

KUWAIT decreased 3.9% to 8,507