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Israeli soldiers bulldozed part of a cemetery in Gaza last summer that contains the graves of soldiers who fought for the allied forces during World War I and World War II, satellite imagery shows.
The Guardian reports that the Gaza war cemetery in al-Tuffah, a neighborhood east of Gaza City, was partially destroyed by Israeli soldiers in the midst of their genocidal campaign last summer, after Israel unilaterally broke the ceasefire agreement.
Satellite imagery shows Israeli forces bulldozed swaths of graves of WWII soldiers, largely Australians. Rows of WWI soldiers’ graves, most of them British, were also destroyed, as well as a plot for Canadian UN Peacekeepers and plots for an Indian UN memorial.
The cemetery, first constructed in 1920 after the end of World War I, is managed by the U.K.-based Commonwealth War Graves Commission, in coordination with Gaza’s Hamas government. The commission said that the cemetery has “suffered extensive damage to headstones, memorials, boundary walls, staff facilities and storage areas,” though The Guardian reports that the destruction is actually near-total.
“Inside the main graveyard two whole sections of graves have been razed, of more than 100 allied soldiers killed in the second world war, the majority of them Australians, with a few British and Polish service personnel,” The Guardian wrote. “Four sections of the dead from the first world war have also been flattened.”
Much of the cemetery exists for the soldiers who were stationed in the Strip, many of them killed in battles in Gaza against the Ottoman Empire in 1917 and 1918. The U.K. was granted control over Palestine shortly following the war.
Israel did the worst damage to the corner of the cemetery housing the graves of Australians who died in WWII in Gaza, where the British empire ran hospitals while fighting the Nazi German forces. Desecrating graves and cemeteries is a war crime.
An Israeli military spokesperson told The Guardian that the graves were bulldozed for defensive reasons.
“During IDF operations in the area, terrorists attempted to attack IDF troops and took cover in structures close to the cemetery. In response, to ensure the safety of IDF troops operating on the ground, operational measures were taken in the area to neutralise identified threats,” the spokesperson said. They added that there was “underground terrorist infrastructure” around the cemetery, without citing evidence.
Reports say that this particular cemetery had been left largely untouched in historic bombardments by Israeli forces. But Israel has repeatedly desecrated cemeteries, and has destroyed countless graves of Palestinians amid its genocide in Gaza. Israeli soldiers have exhumed bodies and held them for political leverage, and bulldozed graves, destroying 39 of 62 cemeteries in Gaza and damaging 19. Just last week, Israeli forces excavated and desecrated another cemetery in al-Tuffah which housed the bodies of thousands of Palestinians, devastating the families of the dead.
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