Israel has had secret commercial ties with Iraq, which it has not established diplomatic relations with, for several years, officials of the Israeli port city of Haifa confirmed Wednesday.

The trade between the two countries is carried out through a third nation -- Jordan, according to the Times of Israel.

The two countries are still technically in a state of war, and Iraq fired 39 Scud missiles into Israel during the 1991 Gulf War.

In October 2010, Wikileaks obtained a 2009 document in which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told U.S. Senator Benjamin Cardin that there is "strong but unpublicized trade between Haifa port and Iraq via Jordan."

Haifa Mayor Yona Yahav, who acknowledged the two-way commerce, said that trucks arrive here from Jordan carrying Iraqi merchandise overland; the goods are then brought to Haifa port, from which they are shipped abroad.

The Israeli government, according to the report, decided to expand the port and turn it into a major link between the East and the West.

Along with those efforts, the government recently invested some 70.6 million U.S. dollars in the development of a train line between Haifa and Beit She'an, a Jordan Valley town close to the border.

The project, which runs along an old Turkish Ottoman-era line through the Jezreel Valley, is set to be completed by early 2016.