Hamas wanted to dig up British war heroes’ graves in Gaza to blackmail the UK government, documents found by Israel suggest
Newly discovered documents reveal that Hamas planned to exhume British and Commonwealth war heroes in Gaza in an attempt to blackmail the government.
The Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC), headed by the British Secretary of State for Defence, has preserved the graves of over 3,000 veterans of the First and Second World Wars.
Thousands of soldiers died in the battle with the Ottomans for control of the Gaza Strip in 1917.
The devastating war left Palestine under British rule for over thirty years.
The documents, believed to have been found in the war-torn country and shared with the Telegraph by Israeli officials, detail an alleged plan to exhume dead soldiers and hold them as hostages.
Hamas planned to exhume buried British and Commonwealth soldiers in Gaza in a bid to blackmail the government, newly discovered documents reveal (Pictured: Smoke rises after an Israeli raid on Khan Younis in Gaza)
More than 3,000 Commonwealth veterans from World Wars I and II have been buried in Gaza following the conflict with the Ottomans (pictured)
Corporal Robert Edward Roberts, 19, of the Royal Welsh Fusiliers was killed during the war in Gaza with the Ottomans
Israeli officials claim the plot was discovered last January at a base in Khan Younis linked to Hamas leaders Yahya Sinwar and Mohammed Deif.
They believe the plot was hatched by an unknown official in October 2022 and that the idea arose when former Prime Minister Liz Truss wanted to move the British embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
The seven-page document contained a list of demands, including relocating buried Commonwealth soldiers to graves outside Gaza, retroactively paying “leasing fees” for the use of the graves since 1917, or rejecting the Jerusalem Declaration.
“If the British government fails to meet the above demands, the Gaza Municipality will remove all the bodies from the cemeteries and collect them in a special location upon court order. The municipality will declare that the bodies will be considered prisoners until a solution or deal is found,” the alleged Hamas document reads.
‘The British government will be in an embarrassing position before the British people, its political elite and its military if a country desecrates the bodies of its soldiers.’
Israeli officials claim the document was drafted before the current conflict in Gaza.
But because the Commonwealth graves are currently under Hamas control, it is believed that the threat of blackmail is still possible.
Second Lieutenant Stanley Henry Parry Boughey, 21, of the Royal Scots Fusillers was also buried in Palestine
Edward Whatley, 19, a Hampshire Regiment gunner who is buried in Gaza
“The tactics described in this document are designed to literally terrorize the people of the United Kingdom and thus influence political decisions,” an Israeli official told The Telegraph.
“There is no way to rule out that Hamas will use these or other similar strategies in the future to influence foreign affairs or other matters that fall within its agenda.”
It comes shortly after Foreign Minister David Lammy criticised a “deliberately provocative” visit by an Israeli minister to Jerusalem’s most controversial holy site.
David Lammy spoke out against the actions of Itamar Ben-Gvir who yesterday visited the Al-Aqsa Mosque complex, known to Jews as the Temple Mount.
He joined international condemnation of Israel’s national security minister at a time of rapidly escalating tensions in the Middle East.
The visit was also rejected by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.