For 84 years, acting corporal Patrick William Cotterill lay at peace in the Gaza War Cemetery.
The young soldier had sailed to the Middle East onboard the Queen Mary early in the second world war, dispatched with the Reserve Motor Transport Company to the 2nd Australian Imperial Force’s Beit Jirja training camp in Palestine.
On 15 July 1941, at Hirbiya beach in Gaza, Cotterill noticed a fellow soldier struggling in the water.
He swam out to save him but drowned in the process.
Cotterill was buried in grave AD9 in the Gaza War Cemetery, interred alongside hundreds of other Australian, British and Canadian soldiers.
His grave is now destroyed.
The Guardian revealed earlier this month that the Israel Defense Forces had bulldozed part of the cemetery.
Satellite imagery shows the worst of the damage has been sustained in a corner where Australian troops were buried.
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“It looks like it’s flattened,” Patrick’s nephew, Daniel Cotterill, tells Guardian Australia.
“It’s a terrible thing, in the midst of lots of other terrible things.”
The war graves were tended to by Palestinian caretakers for generations, including Essam Jaradah, who said the cemetery was “considered one of the most beautiful archaeological sites in Gaza”.
“I feel a sorrow like that of a child who has lost his mother. Pain and bitterness grip my heart over the cemetery, just as deeply as the pain of losing my home entirely.”
The Tuffah area of Gaza City, in which the cemetery sits, has been shelled throughout the current conflict. But more systematic and extensive damage was caused by Israeli military earthmoving in April and May of last year.
Canadian broadcaster CBC reported this week that the IDF had confirmed it had excavated below the graves up to a depth of 30m but couldn’t say whether it had taken any steps to preserve the remains. It said it did so to destroy a Hamas tunnel.
The desecration of the war graves has prompted demands for action from relatives of the Australian dead.
Cotterill has joined the family of another Australian buried there, Albert Kemp, in calling for the restoration of the cemetery. Both families want Israel to commit to giving safe passage to Australian officials, to allow them to properly assess the damage.
“This is industrial damage, by the look of it, they’ve flattened the whole corner of it,” Cotterill said.
“What I’d like to see, the moment it is safe enough to do so, I’d really like it to be restored to the way that it was.”
After being shown satellite images of the cemetery, the IDF said that it had been forced to take defensive measures during military operations.
“During IDF operations in the area, terrorists attempted to attack IDF troops and took cover in structures close to the cemetery. In response, to ensure the safety of IDF troops operating on the ground, operational measures were taken in the area to neutralize identified threats.”
The Australian prime minister, Anthony Albanese, raised the issue with the Israeli president, Isaac Herzog, during his visit last week.
Herzog’s office said last week the president had “committed to checking the issue with the relevant officials and authorities upon his return to Israel”.
The Returned and Services League of Australia (RSL) said it had sought assurances about the state of the Australian graves from the Office of Australian War Graves and the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, which had confirmed the cemetery has suffered “significant damage”.
The RSL Australia national president, Peter Tinley, said his organisation had been assured the graves would be repaired as soon as it was safe to do so.
“The Office of Australian War Graves shares our concerns at the damage to the cemetery and the Australian war graves and is committed to ensuring the restoration of all affected graves as soon as feasible,” Tinley said.
“Unfortunately, the conflict is not yet fully resolved, with ongoing actions, and this makes it extremely difficult to actively monitor the status of the war graves and the cemetery as a whole.”
A spokesperson for the Department of Veterans’ Affairs said the government was “deeply concerned” about the “distressing” reports of the cemetery’s destruction.
“The Government has been clear with Israel about the importance these graves hold for Australians, and all Commonwealth veterans,” the spokesperson said.
Guardian Australia approached Herzog’s office for comment.
