WASHINGTON — Economists and market strategists are anticipating further ripple effects globally from the Middle East conflict, watching to see if the situation draws in other countries with the potential to increasingly drive up oil prices and send capital flowing to safe havens.

Israel was preparing on Saturday to launch a ground assault in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, after telling Palestinians living in the territory to flee south. The Israeli national security adviser, meanwhile, warned Lebanese militant group Hezbollah not to start a war on a second front.

“It looks like we’re headed for a massive ground invasion of Gaza and a large-scale loss of life,” said Ben Cahill, senior fellow in the Energy Security and Climate Change Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). “Anytime you have a conflict of this scale, you will have a market reaction.”

In the past week, concerns about the conflict have fed through to asset prices, contributing to weakness in stocks on Friday with the S&P 500 down 0.5%. Safe-haven assets saw buying with gold up more than 3% on Friday and the US dollar touching a one-week high. Oil prices leapt nearly 6% on Friday as investors assessed what the conflict could mean for supplies from nearby countries in the world’s top oil producing region.

“If it looks like a broadening conflict, oil prices will rise further,” said Michael Englund, chief economist at Action Economics LLC in Boulder, Colorado.

An expanding conflict would also likely cause inflation and, as a byproduct, interest rates around the world to accelerate, said Bernard Baumohl, chief global economist at The Economic Outlook Group in Princeton, New Jersey.

However, while inflation and rates in other countries will likely rise in this worst-case scenario, the US could be the exception as foreign investors pour capital into what they deem a safe haven during global conflict, Mr. Baumohl noted.

“Interest rates could go down,” he said. “Expect the dollar to strengthen.”

Other fuels could also be impacted, as seen in recent developments such as Chevron halting natural gas exports through a major subsea pipeline between Israel and Egypt.

“The bigger risk to the oil market is that this conflict draws in neighboring countries,” said CSIS’ Cahill.

Rising oil prices are unlikely to have a significant impact on US gas prices or consumer spending, analysts noted.

“The consumer is unlikely to see a significant impact on gas prices anytime soon,” Mr. Englund said. — Reuters

SYDNEY — Australia’s decision to deny constitutional recognition to its First Peoples could herald a more divisive “Trump-style” politics at the next national election, while pushing the prime minister to pivot to cost of living issues, some analysts said.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese misread the public mood, analysts said on Sunday, as he took responsibility for the referendum result, in which only the national capital voted “Yes” from among eight states and territories.

More than 60% of Australians voted “No” to altering the constitution to recognize Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island people through the creation of an Indigenous advisory body.

While Albanese said he respected the decision and his government would seek “a new way forward,” some analysts saw the conservative opposition buoyed by its success in opposing the landmark vote.

For Albanese, the referendum loss would be “a personal as well as a political blow — he’s very committed to equity for First Nations peoples,” said Chris Wallace, a specialist in political history and leadership at the University of Canberra.

Now he is expected to pivot to addressing cost of living issues pressing on voters, which had made it harder to win the referendum, she added.

Australia had rejected the “prime minister’s referendum,” said opposition party leader Peter Dutton, adding that his conservative Liberal party would look to form policies to take to the next national election, due in 2025.

Mr. Dutton had opposed the referendum to cement his political position, and showed himself to be “an effective, even superior campaigner,” said Mark Kenny, a professor at the Australian National University.

“He’s going after the blue-collar Labor base in the suburbs and regions, informed by the teachings of Trump and Farage,” Mr. Kenny added. “Australia may be in for a much more aggressive and divided style of politics seen in the US and UK.”

Albanese made an error of judgment in pursuing a referendum that lacked cross-parliamentary support, as Liberal coalition partner the Nationals opposed it a year ago, said Mr. Kenny, who is with the university’s Australian Studies Institute.

Elected in 1996, Albanese saw the failure of the 1999 referendum for Australia to become a republic. Despite that experience as a lawmaker “he squandered it, misreading the mood spectacularly,” Mr. Kenny said.

No referendum has passed in Australia without bipartisan backing.

Moderate voters abandoned the Liberal party at last year’s election, switching to so-called Teal independent candidates in key inner city seats, and installing a Labor government for the first time in nine years.

Analysis of Saturday’s referendum result showed outer metropolitan suburbs in the most populous states of New South Wales and Victoria voted “No,” while the inner city seats that switched from Liberal to independent last year voted “Yes.”

Mr. Dutton may not try to win back these Teal seats at the next election, Mr. Kenny said, adding that almost all of Labor’s rural and outer-suburban, working-class seats voted “No.”

On Sunday, Nationals lawmaker Bridget McKenzie criticized “Yes” voters as “very privileged, highly educated Australians in wealthy suburbs.”

Former Liberal Prime Minister Tony Abbott, who will join the board of Fox Corp next month, praised Mr. Dutton’s “courageous” campaign against the referendum in an interview with Sky News.

Mr. Abbott said what had been rejected was a change in the system of government, not the Aboriginal people.

However, Simon Banks, managing director of government relations firm Hawker Britton and former chief of staff to three Labor leaders, said there would not be calls for Albanese to resign, and Dutton instead had “the biggest political problem.”

He added, “Dutton has made the task for the Liberal Party to recover the so-called Teal seats significantly harder. Meanwhile, national opinion polls show no significant adverse electoral impact for Labor.”

The latest Newspoll, published on Friday, shows Labor still two points up on the 2022 election result, and Albanese’s popularity dipping only slightly, preferred by half of voters to be prime minister, compared with Mr. Dutton’s 30%.

The Liberal’s “wrecking ball campaign” was easy to run, Mr. Wallace said, but “to win the next election, it will have to replace Mr. Dutton with a more likeable leader.” — Reuters