Lorries carrying commercial goods are no longer entering Gaza amid a dispute between traders and Hamas over taxes, the Israeli military body that oversees humanitarian affairs in the Palestinian territory has said.
Cogat said the traders had decided to stop co-ordinating with it on shipments across the Israeli-controlled border in response to a 10,000 shekel ($3,220) fee imposed by Hamas on each lorry entering the territory and a demand that 30 per cent of sales should be conducted in cash.
Hamas denied the accusation in a statement released by the Gaza government's media office, which said the 10,000-shekel fee was, in fact, a contribution to a “voluntary community initiative” to support those in need such as widows and orphans.
It also said the demand for cash payments was an “absolute necessity to address the severe imbalances in the Palestinian market, most notably the acute shortage of cash liquidity”.
Cogat said the traders' decision would cut the total number of lorries entering Gaza, bringing both humanitarian and commercial goods, by half, to around 300. The majority of Gazans are dependent on aid following three years of war, repeated displacement and restrictions imposed by Israel on aid deliveries.
A global hunger monitor warned in July that more than two-thirds of Gazans could face acute hunger by the end of the year. Most of the territory's two million population live in makeshift shelters following widespread destruction of buildings and forced displacement during the war.
Nahed Shhaibar, the head of the private transport union in Gaza, said that not a single lorry carrying commercial products from Israel entered Gaza on Thursday. However, lorries carrying humanitarian aid had entered, as had lorries carrying commercial goods from Egypt via an Israeli-controlled crossing, he told Reuters.
Diplomats say that far fewer than 600 lorries normally enter Gaza each day. Mr Shhaibar said the figure was closer to 300, with two-thirds carrying commercial goods. Under the US-mediated ceasefire that halted full-scale fighting in October last year, Israel is obliged to allow a minimum of 600 lorries carrying humanitarian aid to enter Gaza each day.
Nickolay Mladenov, high representative of the Board of Peace overseeing Gaza's recovery under US President Donald Trump's peace plan, said the dispute showed the need to move on to the next steps in the process, which has stalled over Israel's insistence that Hamas must first disarm.
“These developments demonstrate why the rapid deployment of the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG), supported by the International Stabilisation Force, is urgently needed,” Mr Mladenov said in a post on X. “Civilian supplies, humanitarian assistance and commercial activity must be protected from coercion, exploitation and interference.”
The NCAG is a committee of Palestinian technocrats that was formed in January but has not been allowed to enter Gaza so far.