Gaza War Cemeteries survive but touched by Israel's mass destruction, CWGC report shows
'Extensive damage,' flight of long-serving staff and possible disturbance of WW1 burial remains reported. Reconstruction costs estimated at £5.7 million.
Over one year into the unprecedented escalation in military assault and siege on the Occupied Gaza Strip, which has killed some 43,000 Palestinians and injured an estimated 100,000 - figures likely an under-count - the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) has released details on the situation of all its staff and the damage inflicted on two of its major sites in Gaza.
The British-led CWGC released a Gaza sites status assessment to the Australian government recently, after demands from a Greens Party senator, which confirms that 5 of its 6 long-serving staff in Gaza were released into Egypt in early May with “immediate families”. They will work as part of the Egypt team, the CWGC said, until it is safe for them to return. The sixth member of the team, who is unnamed but thought to be gardener, Yacoub Ismali, chose to remain to be with his extended family. The CWGC say that, as of its report, he was safe and that they were continuing to support him.
The CWGC have made a detailed assessment of the damage inflicted on its two major sites in the Occupied Gaza Strip - the Gaza War Cemetery in al-Tuffah, Gaza City and the Deir El-Balah War Cemetery. They had to “piece together” the assessment relying on local sources, news articles and satellite images. Israel has refused to allow international journalists to enter from outside the territory to assess first-hand the impact of the war and access to the CWGC sites by Palestinians has been reported to be restricted.
CWGC reports that the bulk of its Gaza War Cemetery and Deir El-Balah War Cemetery sites are intact, but with “extensive damage,” particularly to boundary areas. Operational buildings and support equipment, such as the irrigation system, are also significantly damaged.
Extensive damage has been inflicted on boundary walls, trees, hedges, the Staff House and base sites. Over both CWGC sites, an estimated 485 headstones have sustained significant damage, including in the Canadian UNEF I section of 22 headstones, dating from the late 1950s and early 1960s. The report assesses that Australian (47), New Zealand (7) and Canadian (4) headstones [may exclude damage to UNEF sections] are amongst those damaged. The Indian and Ottoman sections are also confirmed to be badly damaged.
CWGC says that ordinance strikes may have disturbed the remains of 28 burials in the Deir El-Balah War Cemetery in central Gaza. The report suggests that, proportionately, more damage has been inflicted on this smaller site of over 700 WW1 burials. Here, the large stone panel memorials to British Raj forces (mostly Punjabi but also some Nepalese men) have been destroyed. One memorial commemorated Muslim forces, the other, Hindu and Sikhs jointly.
The CWGC’s estimated current reconstruction cost is £5.7 million. This is based on a worst case scenario of irreparable structural damage. A formal and detailed appraisal may significantly reduce this figure.
The on-the-ground images of the two sites attached to the report date from mid-June for the Gaza War Cemetery and March for the Deir El-Balah War Cemetery, whilst the report is from October. Reports suggest that local access to the sites is extremely difficult and dangerous, making detailed and up-to-date appraisal challenging. Israel’s military assault is ongoing, with Occupied Gaza divided into two and further degradation is inevitable.
The report makes no assessment of the third major CWGC site in the Occupied Gaza Strip - the Deir El-Balah Egyptian Cemetery for 285 unnamed Egyptian Labour Corps men. Located in south west Deir El-Balah, it consists of a large stone obelisk in a fenced off plot amongst fields.
A part of wider destruction and ethnic cleansing
The destruction inflicted on the Gaza War Cemeteries and its staff and local people is a small part of the wider destruction of Occupied Gaza. The sites have sustained serious damage during previous Israeli military assaults, including in 2006, 2008/9, 2014 and 2021. It is not clear that their caretakers will be able to return this time.
In January 2024, CNN reported 16 cemeteries destroyed by Israeli forces and cited a “systemic practice” of cemetery destruction. They noted that the CWGC sites had been largely avoid. Attacks on cemeteries and heritage sites were presented as a part of South Africa’s genocide case against Israel in the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for “creating conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction as a group.”
As with the scale of killing and suffering, the extent of desecration of the dead in Gaza is inconceivable with unknown numbers buried in destroyed buildings, in makeshift mass burial sites, in Israeli forces custody or decomposing in the open and being scavenged on by animals. It’s not known how many cadavers Israel has seized for claimed hostage identification purposes.
The Al-Tuffah Cemetery, near to the Gaza War Cemetery, in north-eastern Gaza City, pre-dates the WW1-era site and was reported to have been “erased” in early January. A makeshift cemetery created next to it for victims since the 7 October 2023 escalation was also destroyed by Israeli forces in January, with shrouded bodies exposed and cadavers reportedly removed.
CWGC’s assessment report confirms that the Gaza War Cemeteries are still intact though they have suffered extensive damage. Engagement between the British Embassy in Tel-Aviv and the IDF forces has, according to the Australian government, restricted harm to the sites. UK officials also played a role in the release of most of the staff into Egypt in May.
Despite its relatively privileged position in Occupied Gaza, the Gaza War Cemeteries have not escaped Israel’s genocidal assault. Most telling is the impact on the staff and locals, who worked to care for the site. The CWGC Staff House in Gaza War Cemetery is one of an estimated 370,000 housing units damaged or destroyed in the Occupied Gaza Strip. The Staff House was where successive generations of the Jaradah family lived - and where the current Head Gardener, Ibrahim Jaradah, was born.
Like hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, the Gaza War Cemetery staff fled south to Khan Younis and then Rafah soon after the Israeli assault was launched. In early May, Israel’s ground invasion reached the southern border city of Rafah where displaced people had taken refuge en masse and were still being killed by airstrikes. Israeli forces issued an initial evacuation order to Rafah on 6 May. The international community warned of the harm of invading the swollen city but Israel commenced nonetheless. People had nowhere safe to go.
At this moment, 5 of the 6 CWGC Gaza Staff were released into Egypt, presumably, through the Rafah crossing, with the help of CWGC and UK officials, including, it is reported, the incumbent Defence Secretary, Grant Shapps. The staff left with “immediate” family members after surviving months of bombardment and deprivation. Whilst it appears some partners and children were released with staff, they left behind wider families, including parents. Israel occupied the southern border and sealed the Rafah crossing.
Yacoub Ismali, a gardener in his 50’s, approximately, whose service with CWGC in Gaza goes back at least 20 years, is thought to be the staff member who chose to remain in Gaza to care for extended family. CWGC claimed in May that its team had made it safely to Egypt but its October assessment report confirms that a staff member chose to stay behind. Also remaining in Gaza are retired staff leads, Essam Jaradah - father of the current Head Gardener, Ibrahim Jaradah - and Muhammad Awaja, father of gardener, Khalil Awaja. The two remaining retired staff members have many combined decades of service at the war graves.
CWGC reports that the remaining staff member is currently safe but have not commented on their former staff or contractors. Nothing is known about locals, some of whom lived most of their lives next to the CWGC sites. Since the start of October, Israeli forces intensified their siege on parts of northern Gaza and are conducting what Haaretz describes as ethnic cleansing “on display for all to see.”
A renewed Israeli ground assault accompanied by bombardment has targeted northern Gaza, with populations trapped and starved. It has been estimated that in targeted areas of Jabalia, Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahiya, 100,000 people remain under intensified siege, either unable or unwilling to leave - though the true figure is unknown. That would be half of the population that were there on October 5, over a month ago.
The IDF’s Brigadier Gen. Itzik Cohen recently said forcibly displaced Palestinians would not be allowed to return to their homes in northern Gaza and that aid would not be permitted there, as there were no civilians. The IDF subsequently claimed the comments were taken out of context. However, the UK government has reported that no aid entered north Gaza in the first half of October.
Aid to Gaza has fallen to its lowest level in 11 months and, according to the UN and humanitarian groups - the entire population of northern Gaza faces imminent risk of death from disease, famine and violence - despite much publicised but, thus far, only rhetorical, demands from the US government on its ally, Israel, to improve conditions.
The Western media silence on the Gaza War Cemeteries sites, both on issues of the plight of staff and grave desecration, has almost been complete. The only UK media report that addressed both may be from early November 2023, in the Mail Online. The CWGC’s October assessment report appears to have been released through a personal campaign in Parliament and in the media by Australian Greens Senator, David Shoebridge.
Perhaps, there is a fear in the Western media that should the story break on extensive damaged war graves, it would be hard to manage. Attention might turn, as well, to the Palestinian caretakers and their remarkable service of humanity.
Examples of damage and destruction in CWGC’s October report:
Read CWGC’s October Gaza sites assessment report in full here or download below.
