Hamas document reveals plot to blackmail UK by exhuming Commonwealth graves

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A document retrieved by IDF soldiers in the Gaza War revealed a pre-Oct. 7 Hamas plot to dig up the graves of thousands of British and allied soldiers who died during various World Wars, the UK’s Daily Telegraph reported.

Former British Prime Minister Liz Truss, who resigned after just 49 days in office due to party pressure in 2022, had wanted to move the British Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. In an apparent response to her statement, the Iranian-backed Hamas terrorist group concocted a plan to blackmail the British government.

A seven-page document shared with the Telegraph by Israeli officials read: “If the British government does not meet the aforementioned demands, the Gaza municipality will act to remove all the corpses from the cemeteries and collect them in a special location by judicial order, declaring that the corpses are considered captive until a solution or deal is found."

“The British government will find itself in an embarrassing position in front of the British people, its political elite and its military if any country desecrates the corpses of its soldiers.”

The Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) has maintained a cemetery near Gaza City containing the remains of more than 3,000 Commonwealth troops from the World Wars for over a century. Many of these soldiers died in 1917 when the British and Anzak's victory over the Ottoman Turks led to British rule over Mandate Palestine.

The “aforementioned demands” were to have included at least one of the following: a retraction of the Jerusalem statement, evacuation of the soldier’s remains to cemeteries outside Gaza, or the retrospective payment of land “lease fees” for the cemeteries dating back to 1917.

Israeli officials believe the document was written on or around Oct. 5, 2022.

The document was discovered by the IDF at a compound in Khan Younis linked to the Hamas top leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, and the now-deceased Mohammed Deif, on Jan. 31.

“The tactic depicted in this document is intended to quite literally terrorize the people of the UK as a whole in order to influence political decisions,” an Israeli official told The Telegraph.

“There is no way to rule out that Hamas will use this strategy or other similar ones to influence external affairs or anything within their agenda in the future.”

According to the CWGC website, the Gaza War Cemetery contains 3,217 Commonwealth burials from World War I, 781 of which are unidentified. There are also 210 burials from the Second World War, along with 30 post-war burials and 234 war graves of other nationalities.