---
title: "In Gaza, the price of an egg doubles as Israel halts commercial goods for a fifth day"
description: "Israel and Gaza’s authorities are arguing over a 10,000-shekel truck fee, and the cost of flour, onions and eggs keeps climbing"
author: "Jan Sokol"
published: 2026-10-18T13:16:13Z
modified: 2026-10-19T04:47:32Z
url: https://rews.cc/a/in-gaza-the-price-of-an-egg-doubles-as-israel-halts-commerci-62c973
language: en
tags: ["gaza", "food", "inflation", "israel", "hamas", "mideast"]
publisher: "Rews (https://rews.cc)"
---

# In Gaza, the price of an egg doubles as Israel halts commercial goods for a fifth day

*Israel and Gaza’s authorities are arguing over a 10,000-shekel truck fee, and the cost of flour, onions and eggs keeps climbing*

By Jan Sokol · October 18, 2026 · https://rews.cc/a/in-gaza-the-price-of-an-egg-doubles-as-israel-halts-commerci-62c973

## In brief

- Israel stopped commercial goods entering Gaza on October 14, and prices of basic goods were rising daily by the fifth day
- A Jabalia resident said an egg carton rose from 35 shekels to 60–70, with onions and avocados also sharply up
- COGAT blamed merchants reacting to a 10,000-shekel Hamas fee per truck; Gaza’s Media Office says it is a voluntary fund
- COGAT said daily truck entries could fall to about 300, half the 600 set in the US-mediated deal
- OCHA said September 2026 food prices averaged 204 percent above levels before October 2023

On Wednesday, October 14, Israel stopped letting commercial goods into the Gaza Strip. By Sunday, the fifth day, prices of basic goods were going up every day. Families who still had some money were buying whatever they could find before it ran out or cost more. [Maram Humaid, reporting for *Al Jazeera* from Gaza City](https://aljazeera.com/news/2026/10/18/gaza-families-fear-food-shortages-as-israel-halts-commercial-shipments), found the markets somewhat busier than usual. Fear drove the buying.

Some wars are counted in kilometres of front line. This one, a year into a ceasefire, can also be counted in eggs.

## Thirty eggs

Ismail al-Barawi is 52 and lives in Jabalia, in the north of the Strip. He feeds 11 or 12 relatives. Before the closure, he said, a carton of eggs cost 35 shekels ($11.34). Within two or three days it cost 60 to 70 shekels ($18 to $21). A kilogram of onions went from 5 or 6 shekels to 8 or 10. Avocados went from 7 or 8 shekels a kilogram to about 15. He no longer buys a carton of 30 eggs. He buys four or five. What money he has goes first on flour, rice, oil, onions and potatoes.

He expects worse. If the crossings stay closed, he thinks a 50kg sack of flour could reach 200 to 300 shekels ($60 to $90). He does not blame only the soldiers at the crossings. He also blames traders who raised prices on rumours of a closure before any closure happened. “Today, everyone is trading at the expense of the people,” he said. “There is no mercy.”

![A hand places a white egg into a mostly empty cardboard egg tray on a blue surface, with four other eggs clustered along the right side.](https://rews.cc/img/61f10e357535922f300cc973af9b99e0ab3a511f.webp)

Stocking up has its limits even for those who can afford it. Fresh produce rots. Electricity comes and goes, so meat cannot be kept. “Some people cannot even afford to feed themselves for a day,” Barawi said.

## Ten thousand shekels

The two sides give different reasons for the halt. COGAT, the Israeli military body that runs civilian affairs in the territory, announced the halt and placed the cause on the Palestinian side. According to the [Associated Press, as published by *The Washington Post*](https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2026/10/15/israel-netanyahu-gaza-aid-hamas/ce51c22a-c887-11f1-aefb-abe4112d087e_story.html), COGAT said merchants had “made the decision in response to a 10,000 shekel ($3,220) fee imposed by Hamas on each truck entering Gaza”, and to a demand that 30 percent of all sales be made in cash.

Gaza’s Government Media Office gave a different account. In a statement on Thursday, [reported by *Al Jazeera*](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/10/15/israel-halts-commercial-goods-from-entering-gaza-hamas-denies-tax-claims), it denied that the authorities charged any tax or fee on trucks. It said the 10,000 shekels Israel cited go into a voluntary community fund for vulnerable families. It said the 30 percent cash rule was agreed with the Chamber of Commerce to deal with a shortage of cash and worn-out banknotes. It accused Israel of using the dispute as a pretext to tighten its grip on a territory blockaded since 2007.

![A truck loaded with vegetables and sacks waits before a large closed metal gate, with sunlit stone buildings and distant hills beyond.](https://rews.cc/img/cef84dfba402efad852c458506eed368702dd57c.webp)

The merchants, whom Israel presents as the ones who stopped the trucks, deny it. “The merchants are not the ones who stopped the shipments,” Nahed Sheheiber, head of Gaza’s private truckers union, told the AP. Humanitarian aid and commercial goods coming from Egypt through a crossing Israel controls kept moving.

A reflection, not a finding: in a closed territory, the one who holds the gate never needs to say he has shut it. It is enough to name someone else as the reason.

## Counting trucks

The US-mediated agreement sets a target of 600 trucks a day. COGAT itself said the suspension could cut daily entries, commercial and humanitarian together, to about 300, half that target. The two streams carry different things. Aid agencies bring mostly staples such as flour. Private merchants bring the perishables, fruit and meat, and, as winter approaches, warm clothing. The Media Office has called on mediators to press for the full 600 trucks a day that existing agreements require, and warned that otherwise the crisis would deepen. This is the same standstill at the crossings in which, [as rews reported on October 15](https://rews.cc/a/at-gaza-s-crossings-the-trucks-have-stopped-and-israel-and-h-c3333e), Israel and Hamas each blame the other.

![A rustic balance scale holds a large sack of flour on its lower left pan and an onion with folded blue clothing on its higher right pan.](https://rews.cc/img/d7c3c2fcda6cb6310e6e96a6966f03b866238dc5.webp)

Prices were already high before the trucks stopped. The UN’s humanitarian office, OCHA, reported that food prices in September 2026 averaged 204 percent above their levels before October 2023. In other words, food that cost one shekel before the war cost about three a year into the ceasefire, before this closure began.

## Those who watch

Iman Atallah is 50 and displaced in Beit Lahiya. The closure reminds her of the famine of 2025. A sack of flour that cost 25 to 35 shekels now costs about 80 ($24), she said. The aid flour her family receives lasts less than a month.

Her family now lives on rice and lentils. Some days they skip breakfast, some days dinner. The children no longer get eggs. She cannot stockpile, because there is nothing to stockpile with. “We cannot stock up because we have no income,” she said.

> “Those who have money will stock up, while those who do not will just have to watch.”