Cemeteries.

 

An editorial in yesterday’s edition of the Jerusalem Post stated unequivocally that Hamas's intransigence is preventing the war in Gaza from ending.

“It’s not Israel that is holding up a deal that would bring some of the hostages back home; it’s Hamas.”

Secretary of State Anthony Blinken made a determined effort to draw Hamas fully into the latest round of negotiations, “It’s now incumbent on Hamas to do the same [as Israel]. And then the parties, with the help of the mediators the United States, Egypt and Qatar, have to come together and complete the process of reaching clear understandings about how they’ll implement commitments that they’ve made under this agreement,” Blinken said.

Details of the bridging agreement that have been leaked in various media reports indicated that Israel has gone as far as it can in its insistence on maintaining a presence in the two critical Gaza security corridors of Philadelphi and Netzarim.

US President Joe Biden accused Hamas of “backing away” from the plan during his speech Monday night at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

The Jerusalem Post editorial summed up saying. “We thank them for standing with Israel and for confirming over the last 24 hours that it’s not Israel that is holding up a deal that would bring some of the hostages back home; it’s Hamas.”

 A margin note “The Jerusalem Post professes to be in the Israeli political centre, yet it is widely considered to be on the political right.”

CNN reported from Doha, Qatar that US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Tuesday that despite reported comments from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel has agreed to withdrawals of IDF forces from Gaza that are laid out in the recent mediators’ proposal to get closer to a ceasefire agreement with Hamas.

“The agreement is very clear on the schedule and the locations of IDF withdrawals from Gaza, and Israel has agreed to that,” said Blinken in remarks to reporters before departing Qatar.

Blinken was responding to Israeli media reports that Netanyahu told a group of families of terror victims and hostages that he conveyed to Blinken that Israel will not leave the Philadelphi corridor along the Egypt-Gaza border and the Netzarim corridor, which bisects Gaza, “regardless of the pressure to do so.” They are “strategic military and political assets,” Netanyahu added, according to the reports.

Margin note: Netanyahu is not averse to “talking out of both sides of his mouth.”

Blinken said that Netanyahu told him directly in their meeting that Israel agreed to “the bridging proposal and thus the detailed plan” for withdrawal.

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Defence minister Yoav Galant and other Likud Knesset members tend to agree with Blinken and remain at odds with the prime minister.

It’s appropriate at this juncture to conclude by adding something else unearthed in Gaza.

Earlier this week, the BBC and other British news outlets reported that Israeli forces operating in Gaza discovered a seven-page document dated October 5, 2022.

The document outlined Hamas’s intention to pressure the UK government into reversing its stance on Jerusalem following then-Prime Minister Liz Truss's announcement to relocate the British embassy from Tel Aviv.

The planned coercive measures threatened in the document include exhuming the remains of British soldiers buried in Gaza.

The Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) has maintained a cemetery in Gaza for over a century, containing the remains of more than 3,000 Commonwealth troops from the World Wars. Many of these soldiers died in 1917, fighting the Ottomans during a conflict that led to British rule in Palestine.

Other demands included paying "lease fees" for the cemetery land dating back to 1917. The document warns that if the UK does not comply, the bodies would be removed and held "hostage."

Though predating the current war, the threat outlined in the document is definitely real.

There’s another CWGC cemetery a crow’s fly away in Be’er- Sheva.

1,241 Commonwealth soldiers (973 British, 173 Australian, 31 New Zealanders and 1 Indian) are buried there. They fought and died in the battles over Gaza and Be'er-Sheva during World War I. During the battle a force numbering 40,000 infantrymen attacked Be’er Sheva capturing Turkish trenches west of the town. In the meanwhile, approximately 800 mounted forces (after a long flanking movement) fought east of the town and after a whole day of fighting the Australian Light Horse charged the Turkish defences just before sunset and liberated Be'er-Sheva.

When I visited the cemetery many years ago, I looked for and found the grave of Seymour van den Bergh, an English Jew who fell in battle five days before the liberation of Be'er-Sheva.

While paging down through the account of the two cemeteries I recalled something I had written about a remarkable discovery in an industrial site near Acco (Acre). Work clearing the site was impeded by a small burial plot containing four graves. The plot was very old and the graves appeared to be Muslim graves. However, archaeologists from the Israeli antiquities department sent to investigate the site suspected that the graves weren’t authentic. On examination one grave contained a skeleton with a missing leg and arm. The discovery provided the answer to the mystery of the last resting place of Louis-Marie-Joseph-Maximilian Caffarelli du Falga a French officer who fought in Napoleon’s Egyptian campaign. Caffarelli lost his leg in an earlier battle but I’m told Napoleon refused to pension off his best military cartographer. At one of the assaults on Acco a musket ball shattered Caffarelli’s right arm and the army surgeon had to amputate it. The wound was infected and gangrene set in. A few days later he died. Knowing that the Arabs were inclined to desecrate French military graves, Cafferelli and three other French soldiers were interred with Muslim style headstones.

The Israeli government traced descendants of the hapless Cafferelli and they were brought to a ceremony commemorating the death of their long dead ancestor. “Vive la difference.”

 

Have a good weekend.

 

Beni, 22nd of August, 2024.