Families of Canadian soldiers laid to rest in Gaza are urging the government for increased protection of their relatives’ final resting places. They are advocating for the repatriation of the remains of the 22 Canadian soldiers interred at the Gaza War Cemetery, expressing concerns over the repeated damage inflicted by the Israel Defense Forces.
The cemetery in the Tuffah district of Gaza City holds the remains of soldiers who lost their lives during the UN’s initial large-scale peacekeeping mission following the Israeli invasion of Egypt in 1956. Aerial images analyzed by CBC’s visual investigations team reveal the progressive destruction of headstones, excavation of berms using heavy machinery, deployment of tanks and armored vehicles, and detonation of explosives that resulted in a portion of the Canadian peacekeeper section being blasted into the air.
Relatives of soldiers buried at the site, such as the sisters of Paul Picard and Adriaan Bons, have expressed distress over the desecration of the cemetery. Lia Bons, after observing pre- and post-damage aerial images, lamented the transformation of the site into a barren landscape devoid of recognizable headstones.
Marguerite Picard desires to reinter her brother alongside their parents, emphasizing the wish for a dignified resting place. CBC News reached out to the Israel Defense Forces, where an officer from the 401st Brigade Combat Team explained the digging operations undertaken without consideration for the soldiers buried in the cemetery, which falls under the Commonwealth War Graves Commission’s administration.
The destruction of the cemetery came to light following a series of underground explosions in August 2025, as depicted in IDF social media posts referencing a mission to neutralize a Hamas tunnel near a cemetery in Gaza City. The subsequent visual analysis corroborated the damage inflicted on the Gaza War Cemetery housing the Canadian peacekeepers.
Despite ongoing destruction observed in 2026 through satellite imagery, the lack of access hampers a comprehensive assessment of the site’s condition. Canadian officials, while expressing concern over the reported damage to the cemetery, are engaging with relevant authorities to ascertain the extent of the destruction and ensure the preservation of historic and commemorative sites dedicated to fallen soldiers.
