By Robert Harvey
LONDON (Reuters) - Oil prices slipped on Monday as investors continued to focus on the situation in the Middle East, where diplomatic efforts are intensifying in an attempt to contain the conflict between Israel and Hamas.
Brent crude futures fell 53 cents, or 0.58%, to $91.63 a barrel as of 1402 GMT. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures were down 70 cents, or 0.79%, at $87.38 a barrel.
Both benchmarks traded more than $1 a barrel lower than their previous settlement price at their nadir in Monday's session.
The intensification of diplomatic efforts to prevent the Israel-Hamas conflict from further escalation could have calmed oil prices on Monday.
European Union leaders will call for a "humanitarian pause" in the conflict this week so that aid can reach Palestinians in Gaza, with the leaders of France and the Netherlands set to visit Israel this week.
Aid convoys started to arrive in the Gaza Strip from Egypt over the weekend.
"There is some relief in the oil market that Israel is holding off on a planned ground incursion of northern Gaza to negotiate a release of hostages, which opens up a window for diplomacy," added Vandana Hari of Vanda Insights.
But Israel continued its bombardment of Gaza on Monday after launching air strikes over southern Lebanon overnight.
Both oil benchmarks notched 1% week-on-week gains for the last two weeks, on the possibility of supply disruption in the Middle East — the world's biggest oil-supplying region — if the conflict were to spread.
"Escalating wrath in the region will strengthen economic headwinds, potentially rising oil prices will push global inflation higher, monetary tightening could resume, and global oil demand growth will be dented," said PVM analyst Tamas Varga.
Elsewhere, U.S. President Joe Biden last week announced the suspending of sanctions on OPEC member Venezuela, after a Venezuelan government deal with the opposition.
That could bring exports back to the market, but the extent to which this could mitigate the impact of supply risks in the Middle East is unclear.
"The move is expected to add 200-300,000 barrels per day of Venezuelan crude to the global export market, which isn't necessarily a market-moving event on its own, nor are those barrels expected imminently," RBC analyst Michael Tran said in a note.
(Reporting by Robert Harvey in London, Mohi Narayan in New Delhi, Katya Golubkova in Tokyo and Naveen Thukral in Singapore; Editing by Ros Russell and David Holmes)