Your questions answered: Commonwealth War Graves in Gazapublished at 11:23 BST
11:23 BST
Thomas Copeland
BBC Verify Live journalist
Jim from Exeter got in touch to ask if we could use satellite imagery to assess the damage to his grandfather’s grave in Gaza.
Walter Chisholm Gracie was serving with the Royal Scots Fusiliers regiment when he was killed at the Second Battle of Gaza on 19 April 1917.
He is buried in the Gaza War Cemetery, one of two sites in Gaza overseen by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, alongside Deir El Belah War Cemetery. These two sites contain the graves of 3,420 soldiers, mostly from World War One.
Gaza saw three decisive battles between the Egyptian Expeditionary Force (a British Empire military formation) and Ottoman troops in 1917.
I’ve gathered the latest satellite imagery of the sites and compared them with pictures from 2023.
As of 22 September, the commission says around 10% of the headstones have been damaged and their website has specific details as to which parts of the cemeteries have been impacted, external.
The Gaza War Cemetery has been tended by the Jaradah family for 100 years, as the BBC reported in early 2023.
Head gardener Ibrahim Jaradah, members of his team and their families were evacuated to Egypt a little over a year later.
“I promise that once I’m able to enter Gaza again, we’ll work to document everything properly,” Jaradah told me in a message.
Image caption,
Walter Chisholm Gracie, pictured left, and a photo of his grave in Gaza taken before the current conflict