Toilet seats, toys and hair clips: The strangest items Israel still barred from Gaza
Maha Hussaini reports in Middle East Eye on 5 October 2026:
A toilet seat is all that stands between Dima Awad and moving out of her makeshift tent before winter. The 48-year-old Palestinian mother has rented a small garage in western Gaza City and has already moved most of her belongings there. But she cannot move in until she finds a toilet seat, something that has become increasingly difficult to find in Gaza.
The basic item is among a range of essential goods that Israel continues to prevent from entering the besieged enclave.
“I paid the rent around 10 days ago, and I’ve been looking for a proper toilet at an affordable price for about two weeks now,” said Awad, who now lives with her only son after being separated from her husband, who travelled for treatment during the genocide. “Of course, there is no way to find a new toilet seat at an affordable price right now. The second-hand ones are also unsuitable and still expensive.”
Due to their scarcity, toilet seats in Gaza now cost between 1,500 and 2,000 shekels ($486-648). “I have done everything possible to move from my tent so that we wouldn’t get soaked by rainwater like we did last year. But the garage I found doesn’t have a toilet, so we have to build our own,” Awad told Middle East Eye. “I consider the garage rent affordable after all the other unaffordable apartments I tried to rent. It costs around 600 shekels ($194) a month. But now I have to find a toilet that costs twice as much as the rent.”
A ghost list of barred items
Following the imposition of its blockade on the Gaza Strip in 2007, Israel barred or restricted the entry of numerous items, classifying them as “dual-use” goods that could potentially be used for military purposes. These included construction materials, water and sewage pumps, electrical equipment, generators, medical equipment, wheelchairs, crutches and other items needed for basic civilian life.
In the first two years of the genocide that began in October 2023, Israel sealed Gaza’s crossings and severely restricted the entry of commercial goods and humanitarian aid, including food, medicine, fuel and other essential supplies.
Under the October 2025 ceasefire agreement, Israel was required to lift its restrictions and facilitate the flow of international humanitarian aid into Gaza. ‘Yet, nearly a year later, vast restrictions remain, including on medicine, shelter, reconstruction materials, and other essential and non-essential items. A range of everyday civilian and humanitarian items continue to be denied entry under what aid workers have described as a “ghost list”.
The restrictions do not stop at goods with obvious humanitarian or reconstruction uses. They extend to seemingly mundane everyday items such as batteries, lighters and children’s toys. “I have a lighter that the entire camp borrows whenever they need to light a fire for cooking,” said Imad Sersawi, a 45-year-old Palestinian displaced from the Shujaiya neighbourhood.