Israel is operating a parallel import system into Gaza that allows commercial traders to bring in goods barred to humanitarian organizations, including items classified by Israel as âdual-use,â The Guardian reported Thursday.
COGAT, the defense ministry body that oversees aid deliveries to Gaza, denied giving preferential treatment to commercial imports.
Lifesaving items â including some medical and shelter equipment â appear on an Israeli blacklist of dual-use items, which the government says must be tightly restricted because they could be exploited and weaponized by Hamas or other terror groups in the Strip.
Despite this, Israeli authorities have, for at least a month, let private businesses bring several dual-use goods â including generators and metal pallets â through the same checkpoints that currently block such items for aid groups, the Guardian said.
The equipment is now being sold openly in Gaza markets, said the news outlet, citing military, diplomatic and humanitarian sources.
âIt seems highly improbable that the Israelis donât know about them,â the outlet quoted an unnamed diplomatic source as saying. âItâs very shocking that these things are able to enter through commercial channels.â
Gazan-born analyst Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib told The Guardian regarding commercial deliveries to Gaza that âyouâre not just paying fees and taxes to Hamas in Gaza, youâre paying fees and taxes to merchants on the Israeli side.â
âWe all know that Gaza was and will always be a massive market for the Israeli economy,â he said.
A Palestinian man carries firewood amid the ruins of destroyed buildings in the Nuseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip on December 31, 2025. (Eyad Baba / AFP)
Responding to The Guardian, COGAT said âthe policy governing the entry of aid into the Gaza Strip is approved by the political echelon in Israel and implemented by COGAT in a uniform manner vis-a-vis the UN, international organizations, donor countries, and the private sector.â
COGAT also denied âpreventing or delayingâ aid deliveries and said, without specifying, that Israel offers aid groups alternatives to dual-use items.
The report comes amid mounting pressure on humanitarian operations in Gaza. Israelâs Diaspora Affairs Ministry announced this week that the licenses of 37 international nonprofits operating in Gaza and the West Bank would expire on Thursday, after the groups failed to meet new registration requirements.
The ministry said the rules are intended to prevent ties to terror groups, while the Defense Ministry insisted the move would not affect aid delivery.
Egyptian trucks and heavy machinery line up on the Egyptian side of the Rafah border crossing with the Gaza Strip on October 26, 2025. (AFP)
Hamas has accused Israel of refusing to let in sufficiently sturdy shelters, blaming it for the deaths this winter of at least three children who died from cold exposure and 19 people killed by the collapse of structures due to the heavy rainfall.
COGAT says it has let in hundreds of thousands of tents and tarpaulins and is waiting for international organizations to let in close to 100,000 pallets of âwater-related items.â
Half of Hamas tunnels still intact on IDF-controlled area
Citing estimates from the security establishment, the Walla news site reported Thursday that only half the Hamas terror tunnels on the Israeli-controlled side of the Gaza ceasefire line have been destroyed by the IDF so far.
Defense Minister Israel Katz has instructed the IDF to increase its operations to locate and destroy the remaining tunnels, Walla said. The site added that IDF combat engineers and other troops are working around the clock on such efforts and are deploying new methods to render the tunnels unusable.
Illustrative: Israeli soldiers standing next to a Hamas tunnel in Beit Lahiya, in the northern Gaza Strip, November 28, 2024. (Oren Cohen/Flash90)
Israel controls about 53% of the Gaza Strip under the October 9 truce-hostage deal with Hamas that was based on the first phase of US President Donald Trumpâs ceasefire plan.
Israel has killed 416 people amid the Gaza ceasefire since October 11, including one person killed within the past 24 hours, Gazaâs Hamas-run health ministry said Thursday.
Gaza hospitals received the body of one person killed in the past 24 hours and of one person killed beforehand, the statement said, without identifying the dead or saying where they were killed.
Arabic media had reported Wednesday afternoon that a 15-year-old boy was killed by IDF gunfire in the Israeli-controlled side of the Gaza ceasefire line in the southern Stripâs Mawasi, near Khan Younis. The boyâs body was reportedly brought to Khan Younisâs Nasser Hospital. The IDF has not commented on the reports.
