UK: Israel desecrated British graves in Gaza

According to the report, The British embassy in Tel Aviv wrote to the Israeli government four months ago after six headstones and a perimeter wall were destroyed by an Israeli army bulldozer but has not yet received an answer.

The report also claimed that More damage was done last week during an Israeli operation in the nearby town of Beit Hanoun, when an attack helicopter used its cannon to fire at one of the cemetery's larger group memorial stones.

The Telegraph reported that over twenty headstones were damaged by shrapnel and several were completely destroyed. A British diplomat said, “''In spite of the representations, nothing has been heard back: it's all rather exasperating.

The newspaper said that his calls on Sunday to the Israeli Defense Ministry were answered with a general response that the IDF does not intentionally target religious sites.

The Telegraph said that the security situation in Gaza was so poor that for the first time, British diplomats were unable to organize a remembrance service at the cemetery. Andy Fretwell, the Holy Land representative of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, has not been able to visit the Gaza cemetery for a year because of ongoing fighting and has had to rely on reports from its Palestinian gardeners.

''It's very upsetting for everyone involved in maintaining the many war graves here in the Holy Land but particularly upsetting for our loyal and dedicated local staff," Mr Fretwell said. ''I just wish the Israelis would pay more attention to what they are doing."

The cemetery was completed in 1920 and is the resting place for 3,686 Commonwealth soldiers, mostly British soldiers killed during the three bloody battles it took to win Gaza from its Ottoman occupiers in 1917. 210 victims of the Second World War are also buried there, along with 30 soldiers that died since 1945, most of whom were UN observers.