Israel has stopped processing requests from traders to import food to Gaza, according to 12 people involved in the trade, choking off a track that for the past six months supplied more than half of the besieged Palestinian territory’s provisions, reports Reuters.

Since Oct 11, Gaza-based traders who were importing food from Israel and the Israeli-occupied West Bank have lost access to a system introduced in spring by Cogat, the Israeli government body that oversees aid and commercial shipments, and have received no reply to attempts to contact the agency, the sources said.

The shift has driven the flow of goods arriving in Gaza to its lowest level since the start of the conflict, a Reuters analysis of official Israeli data shows. The details of the halt in commercial goods into Gaza have not been previously reported.

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