Israel said on Wednesday that commercial goods had stopped entering Gaza, after Gazan merchants suspended their coordination with COGAT, the Israeli military body that oversees civilian affairs in the territory — cutting off a vital source of food and supplies for a population largely dependent on aid.
COGAT said the merchants told it they had halted cooperation in response to Hamas imposing a 10,000-shekel fee — roughly $3,220 — on every truck entering Gaza, along with a demand that 30 percent of their sales inside the territory be conducted in cash rather than bank transfers. The agency said it had informed senior international officials involved in implementing the ceasefire, which has been observed since October 2025.
Hamas rejected the accusation. In a letter to mediators including Egypt, Qatar and Turkiye, the group said it "categorically" denied imposing taxes or government fees on commercial trucks, noting it had collected none during three years of war given Gaza's humanitarian and economic conditions. It described the 10,000-shekel payment as a voluntary contribution by wealthy businesspeople to a national relief fund supporting widows and orphans, and said cash transactions were encouraged to ease an acute cash shortage in the war-torn territory.
COGAT also cited reports that Hamas security personnel had arrested the son of a merchant who refused to comply with the demands — a claim it said prompted traders to suspend operations out of fear for their safety. The merchants' suspension is "until further notice," according to COGAT, which stressed that Israel did not initiate the halt.
The dispute has immediate consequences for supply levels. COGAT warned the suspension could cut the daily number of trucks entering Gaza — carrying both humanitarian and commercial goods — to around 300, roughly half the recent volume, with the private sector accounting for about half of all trucks each week. Israel is obliged under a US-mediated agreement to allow a minimum of 600 humanitarian aid trucks per day, and says commercial shipments are needed to supplement aid. Nahed Shhaibar, head of Gaza's private transport union, said not a single truck carrying commercial products from Israel entered Gaza on Thursday, though humanitarian aid trucks — and commercial goods from Egypt via an Israeli-controlled crossing — did get through.
Nickolay Mladenov, the Gaza representative of the US-backed Board of Peace tasked with implementing the ceasefire, said he had received COGAT's letter and condemned the reported "threats and coercion" against merchants. "Such practices are unacceptable and must end immediately," he wrote on X, warning that interference in supply chains deepened the suffering of Gaza's civilians.
The standoff lands as Gaza's humanitarian crisis deepens. A global hunger monitor warned in July that more than two-thirds of the territory's roughly two million residents could face acute hunger by year's end, most of them living in makeshift shelters after three years of war, repeated displacement and severe Israeli restrictions on aid deliveries. Last week, the International Organisation for Migration urged Israel to ease the constraints on the entry of critical supplies.