Stray dogs from Gaza are posing a problems for residents of southern Israel. Photo: Wikipedia.

Stray dogs have become the latest threat facing residents of a kibbutz near the border with Gaza, terrorizing and attacking local pets and livestock, Israeli online news site nrg reported on Wednesday.

According to the report, the dogs have been presenting a challenge for members of Kibbutz Nahal Oz, with resident complaining of harm caused to their own pets by the “hungry, neglected and aggressive” strays.

“This is indeed a serious problem,” Yehoshua Shkedi, chief scientist at the Israel Nature and Parks Authority, told nrg. “Dogs enter Israel from all the borders, and some of them carry rabies, while others become predators.”

Shkedi also said that following Operation Protective Edge — the war between Israel and Hamas in the summer of 2014 — many dogs entered Israel’s Western Negev — where Nahal Oz and other communities are located — from the Gaza Strip.

Shkedi said local authorities are limited in their ability to tackle the problem because of laws that control where and when the dogs can be killed. A spokesperson for the Agriculture Ministry said shooting the dogs near the border with the Gaza Strip was not allowed because of sensitive security in the area.

Because of the delicate situation, the Agriculture Ministry told nrg that it had “proposed alternative methods for dealing with the dogs — such as poison, whose use would be carefully supervised to avoid mistakenly causing harm to any other animals.”