Prosecutors on Thursday filed charges against the brother of the head of Israel’s domestic intelligence agency for offences including “assisting the enemy in wartime”, over the alleged smuggling of cigarettes into besieged Gaza. Israel controls the entry of all goods and people into the Palestinian territory, where humanitarian conditions remain dire despite a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas which came into effect on October 10. Bezalel Zini, the brother of Shin Bet chief David Zini, is charged along with other defendants with “assisting the enemy in wartime, performing transactions in property for terrorist purposes, obtaining something by fraud under aggravated circumstances, and taking bribes”, the justice ministry said. “A central category of prohibited goods smuggled into the Strip was tobacco and cigarettes, which have put a total of hundreds of millions of shekels into Hamas’s coffers since the start of the war,” the ministry added in a statement. Bezalel Zini, a reservist in the Israeli military, is suspected of smuggling approximately 14 cartons of cigarettes into Gaza on three occasions, for which he received 365,000 …