West Texas Intermediate and Brent crude headed for the first weekly gain in a month after a Malaysian Air passenger jet was downed in Ukraine and Israel sent ground forces into the Gaza Strip. WTI futures rose as much as 0.7 percent in New York, extending a 2 percent increase yesterday that was the biggest gain since June 12. The Boeing Co. 777 crashed en route to Kuala Lumpur from Amsterdam in the main battleground of Ukraine’s civil war, threatening to escalate the worst crisis between the West and Russia since the end of the Cold War. Israel’s movement of troops and tanks into the coastal enclave marks the first significant ground operation in Gaza since 2009. “Rising prices yesterday and today reflect the political situations in Gaza and Ukraine, and of course there’s potential to go higher,” said Gerrit Zambo, an oil trader at Bayerische Landesbank in Munich, […]