Hamas has warned its members against buying cars imported via Israel without first undergoing thorough scrutiny checks, officials confirmed Tuesday.
The cars could have tracking devices or be booby-trapped, according to the radical Islamist movement which rules Gaza, DPA reported.
Gaza's Interior Ministry sent a note with the warning to officials in the de-facto Hamas government as well as to other Hamas leaders and to those of other factions, a security official said Tuesday.
Any car purchased via Israel should undergo a thorough test at a special garage before it was used, it said.
Hamas Interior Ministry spokesman Ihab al-Ghussein confirmed the note.
Importing cars into Gaza via Israel has only recently resumed for the first time in four years, when Israel in June eased a near-total blockade on Gaza.
Israel made the concession after it came under heavy international pressure following a May 31 Israeli naval attack on a Gaza-bound flotilla, which had declared it would attempt to break the Israeli blockade of the Palestinian coastal enclave.
Israeli naval commandos shot dead nine Turkish pro-Palestinian activists, after they were taken by surprise by a rioting crowd.
Over the past month alone, some 180 cars have been imported into Gaza by Palestinian car dealers via Israel, most of them South Korean, German and Japanese.