Hamas plotted to dig up the remains of British and Commonwealth troops buried in Gaza and blackmail the Government over their return, according to documents uncovered in the war-torn enclave.

For more than a century The Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC), chaired by the UK Defence Secretary and supported by the Crown, has maintained a cemetery in central Gaza containing the remains of more than 3,000 Commonwealth troops from the First and Second World Wars.

Many of the soldiers buried there died fighting the Ottomans for control of the Strip in 1917, a bloody conflict that paved the way for the British administration of Palestine.

The plot to exhume the remains of the soldiers and hold them “prisoner” is detailed in a seven-page document, shared with The Telegraph by Israeli officials.

They say it was uncovered by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) on Jan 31 at a compound in Khan Younis linked to Hamas leaders Yahya Sinwar and Mohammed Deif.

The Israelis believe it was written on or around Oct 5 2022, by an unknown official, apparently in response to comments made by the then-prime minister Liz Truss on her desire to move the British Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

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.

“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,” says the document.

“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.”

Although the document pre-dates the war in Gaza, the land holding the Commonwealth cemeteries remains under Hamas control and Israeli officials say the extortion threat remains real.

“The tactic depicted in this document is intended to quite literally terrorise 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.”

Israeli officials say the document was found in a plastic sleeve among a cache related to the group’s dealings with Hezbollah and other international terrorist organisations. It was marked “M’Raed”.

“[This] is possibly referring to Raed Salim Khalek, head of the Information and OSINT (open source intelligence) department in the Hamas military intelligence directorate”, the Israeli intelligence commentary on the document adds.

David Lammy, the Foreign Secretary, visited Israel on Friday as part of frantic diplomatic efforts to secure a ceasefire in Gaza that could prevent the region spiralling into all-out war.

Mr Lammy said he was hopeful that Israel and Hamas were on the “cusp of a deal” as talks in Doha wrapped up on Friday.

Hugh Lovatt, a senior policy fellow at the Middle East and North Africa programme at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said the document was “no obvious forgery” but there also no clear indication it was an official Hamas document. “I would usually expect a Quranic/Islamic header such as ‘In the name of God the Merciful’,” he said.

The tone used was also flowery and deferential – “not in itself a red flag, but not what I would expect from a ‘working document’”.

The Commonwealth Cemeteries have been immaculately maintained for most of the time since their establishment in 1917 by local staff. However, the team that looked after it was evacuated to Egypt after Oct 7 and it is known the cemeteries suffered some damage in the recent fighting.

The CWGC, a non-political organisation that carries out a “commemorative role” on behalf of the peoples of many nations, said it was shocked and saddened by the revelations.

“Our sites are places of peace; global reminders of the human cost of war, and we are shocked by the suggestion that either they, or our war dead, should ever be used for political ends,” said a spokesman.

They added: “The CWGC will work with the international community to safeguard our interests in Gaza. We are continually monitoring the situation in Gaza and Israel. We are saddened by the recent damage to the Gaza War Cemetery and Deir El Belah War Cemetery, and when it is safe to do so, we will assess what future repairs will be needed and act accordingly.”

‘It’s crossing a taboo and a red line’

By Paul Nuki, Melanie Swan in Tel Aviv and Fiona Parker in London

By 1917, the Great War was in its fourth year, but the worst of the fighting in Gaza was yet to come.

British troops had been defending the Suez Canal against attack by Turkey, then allied with Germany.

But the decision was made in the War Office for several battalions to make a thrust from Egypt towards Jerusalem.

The result was carnage. In two major battles in Gaza in March and April, around 6,000 British and Commonwealth soldiers lost their lives in heavy fighting against Turkish Ottoman troops.

It would take another nine months for Britain to reach Jerusalem and topple the 400-year-old Ottoman Empire.

A British officer wrote of the cost of the Gaza battles in his diary: “Lieutenants Allison and Foley with two troops charged a trench… and bayoneted 32 Turks, half of whom had put up their hands while the other half continued to shoot.”

“He died as he would have wished, in the midst of battle with his rifle in his hand,” recalls another diary of a Commonwealth trooper who was “loved by all who knew him”.

It is the graves of these men and thousands of others like them that the terrorist group Hamas appears to have considered targeting in a cynical attempt to extort the British state.

By digging up the remains of Britain’s heroes and holding their bones “prisoner”, they hoped to influence both the specifics and broad trajectory of British policy in the region, according to documents unearthed in Gaza by Israeli forces in January.

By “collecting the corpses and not handing them over to Britain until Britain intervenes with the Zionist entity”, Hamas would gain influence, the documents say.

The Gaza War Cemetery and a second site, the Deir El Belah War Cemetery, also in Gaza, have been immaculately tended by local Palestinians working for the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) for more than 100 years.

The main site, located just 1.5km north-east of Gaza City, was once approached through a peaceful avenue of trees.

It contains 3,217 Commonwealth burials from the First World War and 210 from the Second.

Of the British soldiers who rest there, the great majority belong to the 52nd (Lowland), the 53rd (Welsh), the 54th (East Anglian) and the 74th (Yeomanry) Divisions.

Martin Glen, the author of Gaza 1917: First Battle 26 March and Second Battle 19 April, told The Telegraph on Friday he was sickened by the idea that the remains of soldiers of any nationality could be treated in such a fashion.

“What you’re describing, maybe using the bodies of the soldiers as bargaining chips, just cuts me to the core,” he said.

“To actually hear that they considered digging up some of the bodies is so disrespectful, it shouldn’t even ever be contemplated.

“It’s crossing a taboo and a red line.”

Mark Urban, the former Newsnight diplomatic and defence editor, is among many Britons alive today who have relatives buried in Gaza.

His great uncle, Lance Sergeant Walter Holmes, was killed in the Second Battle of Gaza on April 19, 1917, when he was 18 years old.

His battalion, the Isle of Wight Rifles, launched its attack with over 800 men from which only 92 returned.

“They were among 6,000 Allied casualties in a slaughter that rivalled some of the worst scenes on the Western Front,” Mr Urban wrote after visiting his uncle’s grave there in 2009.

Paul Whatley, 70, whose great uncle Edward Whatley is buried in the Deir El Belah War Cemetery in Gaza, described the plan discussed in the document as “disgusting”.

Mr Whatley said he took great pride in his great-uncle, who was shot and died from his injuries aged 19 in 1917. He had served as a rifleman in the Hampshire Regiment and Mr Whatley’s father, Edward, was named after him.

“I’m disgusted that they’d consider using the bodies of soldiers as bargaining chips.

“Nothing could ever justify doing something like that, I’m horrified,” said the retired maintenance worker and father-of-five.

Leslie Lloyd Roberts, the nephew of Lance Corporal Robert Edward Roberts, a bugler in the Royal Welsh Fusiliers who was killed in the First Battle of Gaza in 1917, also called for greater respect to be shown to the dead.

The retired printworker, 85, told The Telegraph: “I’m very proud of my uncle. I have sympathy for the Palestinian people and I think they are probably having a very raw deal under Hamas. But this is terrorism, it isn’t democracy.

“At the very least, Hamas should have respect for the dead – especially fallen soldiers.”

According to the document, Hamas had been spurred into action by the then prime minister Liz Truss’s October 2022 statement on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York that Britain was considering moving its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem – just as Donald Trump had done with the US embassy five years earlier.

“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,” says the document.

Looking in from Gaza, Hamas may have perceived the CWGC to be a political institution. His Majesty the King is its Patron, Her Royal Highness The Princess Royal is President, and the Secretary of State for Defence is the Chairman.

“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,” says the document.

“In the eyes of the United Kingdom, the cemeteries belong to the United Kingdom and are under the auspices of the British embassies, therefore the evacuation of the cemeteries will not only be an injury to the sanctity of the dead but also to the honour of the British Army. This will lead to the arrival of [British] mediators”.

Israeli intelligence officials say the extortion threat remains real as the cemeteries are within the terrorist organisation’s control – or could be if a ceasefire is declared and Israeli forces withdraw from the Gaza Strip, as the US-brokered deal being negotiated in Doha and Cairo envisages.

“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,” one Israeli official said on Thursday.

The Telegraph has not been able to verify the document, which was shared by an Israeli official, but has checked its translation, which three experts confirmed was accurate.

The timing of the release of the document may or may not also be relevant. It has been released by the Israeli authorities amid a major diplomatic push for a ceasefire and hostage exchange in Gaza, potentially involving the withdrawal of Israeli troops and the renewed spectre of Hamas control.

Mr Lovatt of the European Council on Foreign Relations, added: “This document should be contrasted with how well Gazans have respected and taken care of Commonwealth war graves – including under Hamas control. Were this [plot] to have been implemented, it would have been met with revulsion by many Palestinians, including I suspect within Hamas itself”.

Israeli intelligence’s interpretation of the document is that it represents a sophisticated attempt to influence UK policy and give Hamas leverage on several levels.

First, it would “undermine and embarrass” the Palestinian Authority by showing Hamas was “taking advantage of every opportunity to support Jerusalem and keep it Arab, Muslim and Palestinian”, the document argues.

Second, it would force Britain to engage with Hamas, opening “opportunities for manoeuvring and bargaining”, damaging Liz Truss and putting “the small, distant and besieged Gaza on the international agenda”.

Third, the move “will tie Jerusalem to Gaza and position Gaza as the defender of Jerusalem”. And fourth, it would open “another front with the Zionist enemy through turning British support for Israel into pressure on it”.

The CWGC spokesperson added: “Our sites in Gaza have always been widely respected and have been maintained by a dedicated staff drawn from the local community – indeed one family has more than a century of collective service to our war dead.  Although those colleagues have been evacuated for their safety, prior to the current conflict the CWGC’s cemeteries in Gaza were a focal point for local people and hugely respected for both their beauty and their historical importance”.

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