Source: Palestine Forum of New Zealand
There is a deeply painful connection between Aotearoa New Zealand and the Gaza War Cemetery that deserves to be remembered.
Long before the current destruction of Gaza, New Zealand soldiers fought and died in the Palestine campaign of the First World War. Some never made it home. Their final resting place is Gaza.
Among those buried at the Gaza War Cemetery are Private Kamati and Private Tutavake, two soldiers associated with the New Zealand Māori Pioneer Battalion’s Rarotongan contingent. New Zealand historical reporting has described them as members of the Māori Battalion.
They are not simply names on a distant memorial.
They were young men from the Pacific who travelled thousands of kilometres from their homes to serve in a war that brought them to Palestine. They became part of the history of Aotearoa, the Pacific and the Middle East — and Gaza became their final resting place.
Today, that cemetery itself has been caught up in another war.
A cemetery caught in the destruction of Gaza
The Gaza War Cemetery contains more than 3,000 Commonwealth graves from the First World War, together with graves from the Second World War and other conflicts. The New Zealand War Graves Project records 32 New Zealand casualties at the cemetery, including Kamati and Tutavake.
In February 2026, reports emerged that sections of the cemetery had been bulldozed and damaged.
The New Zealand Herald reported that the destroyed section contained 20 New Zealand and two Rarotongan soldiers. Satellite imagery showed parts of the cemetery’s previously green grounds turned into churned earth.
The damage was serious enough for the New Zealand Government to publicly express its concern.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade said New Zealand was “deeply concerned” about damage to the Gaza War Cemetery and the nearby Deir el-Balah War Cemetery, describing them as the final resting places of New Zealanders who died in the two world wars.
New Zealand’s ambassador to Israel raised the matter directly with the Israeli Government, conveying New Zealand’s expectation that the graves of New Zealand, Pacific and Commonwealth service personnel be treated with the utmost respect.
The Commonwealth War Graves Commission has committed to restoring the cemeteries when it is safe and practical to do so.
Their story is bigger than a cemetery
There is something profoundly symbolic about this.
These Pacific soldiers left their islands and travelled to a part of the world they had never known. They fought and died in Palestine more than a century ago.
Their graves subsequently became part of Gaza’s landscape.
For generations, the cemetery was cared for by Palestinian caretakers. New Zealanders visiting Gaza on Anzac Day came to remember their countrymen. A 2014 New Zealand Herald account described the cemetery as a place where New Zealanders came to honour the fallen.
And then Gaza became a battlefield again.
The people living around the cemetery today are experiencing a war of their own — while the men buried beneath the ground have, once again, been caught in the violence of a conflict in Palestine.
That is the tragedy of Gaza’s war graves.
Aotearoa should remember them
For New Zealanders, this should not be an abstract international story.
The men buried there were part of our history.
They represented New Zealand and the Pacific at a time when Māori and Pacific soldiers made enormous sacrifices during the First World War.
The story of Kamati and Tutavake also reminds us that the history of New Zealand’s military service is not exclusively a European story. It includes Māori, Cook Islanders and other Pacific peoples whose contribution and sacrifice helped shape the history of Aotearoa.
Their graves in Gaza are physical links between Aotearoa, the Pacific and Palestine.
And that makes their treatment today especially painful.
Whatever one’s position on the present conflict, the principle should be straightforward:
War graves must be respected. The dead should not become casualties of the wars of the living.
More than a century after these soldiers died, their final resting place should be a place of peace.
Kamati and Tutavake deserve to be remembered not only as soldiers who died in Palestine, but as Pacific men whose lives became part of the shared history of Aotearoa, the Pacific and Gaza.
Their names remain.
Their graves remain.
And their story should not be forgotten.
Maher Nazzal
Chair
Palestine Forum of New Zealand