The recent bulldozing of the Gaza War Cemetery has disturbed the final resting place of thousands of soldiers, including those from the British Indian Army. While Australia has expressed outrage, the silence from Southasian governments raises urgent questions about how we value our shared historical memory.
By Inderjeet Parmar / Sapan News
The Gaza War Cemetery in al-Tuffah, eastern Gaza City, stands as a poignant reminder of shared imperial sacrifices across the British Empire during the World Wars. Administered by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, this site holds over 3,200 graves, including British, Australian, Polish, and soldiers from the British Indian Army, many from regions now in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, alongside dedicated Hindu-Sikh, Muslim, and Turkish sections, and an Indian UN memorial honouring post-independence peacekeeping contributions.
In early February 2026, satellite imagery published by The Guardian and corroborated by witness testimony, revealed systematic bulldozing in the cemetery’s southern section. Rows of headstones were cleared by the Israel Defence Force, topsoil churned by heavy machinery, and large earthen banks constructed, transforming parts of the sacred ground into apparent military earthworks or access routes.
The damage, absent in March 2025 imagery but evident in August and December 2025 photos, includes over 100 World War II graves, predominantly Australian with some British and Polish, four sections of World War I British burials, the 54th East Anglian Division memorial, boundary walls, and crucially for Southasian memory, areas encompassing Hindu and Muslim plots, the Turkish burial ground, and the Indian UN memorial.
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Caption: Al Tuffah neighbourhood in Gaza City lies in ruins after intensified Israeli bombardments
The Commission expressed deep concern over “extensive damage” to headstones, memorials, facilities, and specific cultural sections, noting prior incidents such as the missile damage in 2006 compensated by Israel, and repairs after the 2009 events, but describing the recent earthmoving as far beyond incidental bombardment.
For Southasian readers, this desecration carries acute historical weight. The Indian soldiers buried here — recruited under colonial rule from Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Bengal and beyond — fought and died in campaigns to wrest Palestine from Ottoman control, often with little recognition or reward beyond distant imperial honours.
Their graves, alongside those of pre-Partition comrades now claimed by Pakistan and Bangladesh, symbolise the expendability of colonised lives in empire’s wars. The Indian UN memorial further links this to independent India’s global peacekeeping legacy, specifically between 1956 and 1967 to supervise the ceasefire after the Suez crisis.
Disturbing these sites revives questions of continuity: how the dead from subaltern histories remain vulnerable when modern geopolitical imperatives prevail.
Australia has responded with unambiguous outrage and action. The Department of Veterans’ Affairs labelled the damage to over 250 Anzac graves “distressing” and committed to full restoration through the Office of Australian War Graves, coordinating with the Commonwealth War Graves Commission as soon as access allows.
This pledge reflects a national ethos that honours fallen service members regardless of distance or time.
Southasian response
In contrast, the governments of India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh have been conspicuously silent on this specific incident. No public statements from India’s Ministry of External Affairs, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, or official channels address the cemetery’s damage or the Indian UN memorial’s disturbance. This is despite India’s ongoing Commission involvement as a Commonwealth contributor and its emphasis on commemorating war dead through national memorials and events.
India’s broader Gaza diplomacy has centred on supporting ceasefire efforts, UN resolutions such as reaffirming backing for US-led initiatives and UN Resolution 2803 in late 2025–early 2026, and humanitarian concerns via forums like the India-Arab Foreign Ministers’ Meeting, 31 January 2026, without critiquing this heritage violation.
Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has issued strong condemnations of Israeli actions in Gaza — focusing on Rafah operations, ceasefire breaches, civilian massacres, and aid blockades — often in joint statements with Arab and Muslim-majority states like Egypt, Indonesia, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Türkiye, and the UAE . Yet none reference the Commonwealth cemetery or graves of pre-Partition soldiers.
Bangladesh’s foreign ministry has similarly prioritised general calls for ceasefire, dialogue, and civilian protection, with no targeted comment on the February 2026 reports.
This collective silence — unlike Australia’s vocal commitment — highlights selective engagement. Robust defence and strategic ties, notably India’s with Israel, appear to temper symbolic defence of historical memory when it collides with allied actions.
The IDF has justified operations in the area as necessary in an “active combat zone” involving Hamas tunnels, a claim repeated in past controversies but challenged by the targeted, deliberate nature of the observed earthmoving rather than collateral effects.
The incident fits broader patterns: Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor and others have documented damage to numerous Palestinian cemeteries with reports identifying at least 16–21 desecrated sites, underscoring a disregard for the dead that compounds civilian suffering. Yet the bulldozing of Commonwealth graves — those of men who helped redraw the Middle East under empire — exposes a selective hypocrisy. Western nations solemnly mark Remembrance Sunday or ANZAC Day, invoking “shared values” of freedom and sacrifice, yet muted reactions emerge when a key ally disturbs those very symbols.
The irony is profound: Soldiers from colonised regions and settler dominions rest side by side in contested soil, their legacies invoked for unity yet erased or instrumentalised when inconvenient. Restoration may occur — the Commonwealth War Graves Commission intends it; Australia has vowed it — but rebuilding headstones alone cannot mend the deeper wound. True repair demands reckoning with entangled imperial histories, colonial recruitment, and ongoing occupation that render even the long-dead collateral.
In the end, the need to remember our war dead transcends borders, alliances, and eras. These disturbed graves — British, Australian, Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi in origin — call us to a solemn duty: To honour all who fell with dignity. Forgetting them, or allowing their memory to be selectively bulldozed, diminishes us all. May the soil be smoothed, the stones reset, and the silence broken in renewed commitment to the universal sanctity of the fallen.
End Credits
Inderjeet Parmar is Professor of International Politics and Associate Dean of Research in the School of Policy and Global Affairs at City St George’s, University of London.
This is a Sapan News syndicated feature available for republication with due credit https://www.sapannews.com.
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Arab Failures: The Unspoken Complicity in Israel’s Genocide
Chris Hedges: The Gaza Riviera
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