Goods Stop Entering Gaza as Israel Blames Hamas Taxes, Merchants' Union Disputes Account | Israel Politics Post
Goods Stop Entering Gaza as Israel Blames Hamas Taxes, Merchants' Union Disputes Account
COGAT says Palestinian importers walked off the job after Hamas demanded roughly 10,000 shekels per truck entering the Strip, a version of events Gaza's truckers union flatly rejects.
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By Israel Politics Post Staff·Published
A Palestinian vendor arranges fruit at a market in the Al-Shati refugee camp in Gaza City · Source: AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana, via The Times of Israel
Commercial goods stopped entering Gaza for two days this week, with Israeli authorities blaming merchant frustration over new Hamas taxation rather than any restriction on their own end, The Times of Israel reported. COGAT, the Israeli defense body that coordinates Gaza crossings, said Palestinian importers voluntarily halted shipments of perishable food and winter clothing after Hamas began demanding roughly 10,000 shekels per truck entering the territory, with some merchants reportedly citing threats and the arrest of one merchant's son as reasons for the stoppage.
Nahed Sheheiber, head of Gaza's private truckers union, rejected that account outright. "The merchants are not the ones who stopped the shipments," he said, placing responsibility for the halt on Israeli authorities instead.
Following COGAT's statement, Sheheiber's union met with Hamas's Ministry of Economy, where officials described the 10,000-shekel charge not as a tax but as a "voluntary community initiative" feeding a national relief fund.
Humanitarian organizations working in Gaza have warned that the dispute, whoever is ultimately responsible for it, threatens to undercut food affordability in the territory, where aid alone has never been enough to keep markets functioning and prices stable; both aid shipments and a working commercial supply chain are needed together.
