2024-07-22
The Australian Greens have obtained satellite imagery that shows the destruction of Australian war graves in Gaza and the surrounding area.
The Gaza War Cemetery is in the al-Tuffah area, near Gaza City. Over 250 Australian soldiers are buried in the Commonwealth Gaza War Cemetery and thousands of other soldiers from across Britain, Canada, India and New Zealand, casualties from two World Wars.
The Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC), an international consortium of which Australia is a member tasked with ensuring the graves of soldiers are maintained, notified the Australian Government in March 2024 that there was damage to the graves in Gaza.
In response the Australian government did nothing. It made no inquiries about the extent of the damage and critically no protest to Israel about the damage.
Since that report, there have been further repeated heavy strikes on al-Tuffah including on June 22 which saw bombing and artillery shelling around the area which killed at least 40 people.
Satellite images from July 7 show there has been significantly more damage to the cemetery than March, including more craters, churned-up dirt and debris. The images also show the staggering destruction of the surrounding area in Palestine.
Senator David Shoebidge, Greens Spokesperson on Defence: “When the Albanese Labor Government exerts no pressure on those who commit war crimes, they just continue committing war crimes. The desecration of war graves by Israel is another example of this.”
“When you look at these pictures it is important to zoom out and see the surrounding damage with homes, farms, workplaces, in fact entire communities destroyed.
“Make no mistake, the State of Israel hit these war graves because it could, because there would be no punishment from Australia or the UK. It has made Gaza into a gravesite for the same reasons.
“More than 38,000 Palestinians have been killed, and tens of thousands more injured, since Israel invaded Gaza and the Albanese Government has taken no material steps to stop the genocide.
“Even in the face of desecrated Australian war graves there has been no pushback from the Albanese government, no complaint, no protest. That is hard to understand.
“The Government could end the two-way arms trade, sanction Benjamin Netanyahu’s extreme government and expel the ambassador, but it chooses not to."
