Independent senator David Pocock has said that the bodies of Australian soldiers buried in Gaza have “very likely” been disturbed, after new photographs showing widespread damage to the cemetery were presented to parliament. The comments follow revelations that 146 of the 263 Australian war graves in the Tuffah area of Gaza City have been damaged, with extensive bulldozing by the Israel Defense Forces.
The director of the Office of Australian War Graves, Major General Wade Stothart, told Senate estimates that it was “quite possible” that human remains had been disturbed, but stressed that a detailed on-the-ground assessment was needed to confirm. The worst damage occurred in the southern corner of the cemetery, which contains the graves of Australians who died during the Second World War, and took place in April and May last year.
Stothart said there was no current plan or timeline to repair the graves due to the ongoing conflict in Gaza. Families of the fallen have expressed shock and outrage, with Wilma Spence, whose father Albert Kemp is buried there, calling for the photographs to be published on the front pages of Australian and British newspapers.
Pocock described the bulldozing as “appalling” and said the Australian government should press Israel to restore the graves. Julie Shiels, whose mother’s first husband William Frederick Matthews was buried in the cemetery in 1941, demanded an explanation for the destruction.
