Hamas had a plan to loot graves in British and Commonwealth cemeteries in Gaza and steal the remains of soldiers who fell in World War I and World War II and then blackmail the UK government, writes the Jerusalem Postwhich cites a scoop from the Daily Telegraph according to which the plan would have emerged from documents seized in January in Khan Younis by the Israeli military, seen by the British newspaper.
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In addition to the remains of British soldiers, the plan also included stealing the remains of 3,000 soldiers from Commonwealth countries who fought alongside the British. The seven-page plan, the JP writes, was contained in a plastic folder labeled “M’Raed“ found by the military in a Hamas compound in Khan Younis, probably developed in 2022, and is thought to be headed by former Hamas number two Mohammed Deif, recently killed in an Israeli raid, and the then military chief Yahya Sinwar, who has now become leader of the movement after the killing of Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran.
The intent was to carry out a judicial seizure of the remains of the fallento be relocated to a dedicated site, and to ask then Foreign Secretary Liz Truss, who had said she wanted to move the British Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, to backtrack. And also to impose a “rental tax” to be paid to Hamas for hosting the cemetery on its territory, including arrears from 1917 onwards, writes the Telegraphquoted by Jerusalem Post.
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