“Fighting for those who love him, our darling daddy died,” the inscription reads.

Just saying the words threatens to overwhelm Wilma Spence.

In the quiet of her living room, tears welling in her eyes, Wilma shares the inscription that was carved into the now-ruined tombstone of her father, Albert Kemp, an Anzac buried in the Gaza War Cemetery.

But her father’s grave, she learned this week, has almost certainly been destroyed along with the graves of hundreds of other Commonwealth war dead, bulldozed by the Israel Defense Forces.

Wilma has had no official word, but she knows exactly where his grave was, in a corner of the cemetery that houses the graves of Australians who died during the second world war, where satellite imagery shows the worst of the damage has been sustained.

An IDF spokesperson claimed the military destroyed the graves to deal with “underground terrorist infrastructure … identified within the cemetery and in its surrounding area”, a claim that has been met with deep scepticism by families of the Anzac dead.

Wilma and her family now have no idea where Albert’s remains are.

They have been left gripped by grief and anger.

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“They have no respect for the living, so why would they respect the dead?” Wilma says of the Israeli government.

Wilma was too young to know her father. He enlisted in Dandenong, in south-eastern Melbourne, in October 1939, joining the 2/7 Battalion of the Australian Infantry Force and fighting across several theatres in Europe and the Middle East. He earned the Africa Star and the 1939-45 Star, among other campaign medals, and was promoted to acting corporal in 1941 before his death in Palestine the next year, aged 27.

What she knew, she had learned secondhand through relatives. She has travelled across Crete and the Middle East, tracing the path of her father’s Anzac service. But it was at his grave where she felt closest to him.

Wilma visited the Gaza War Cemetery in 1995, braving a two-hour Mossad interrogation and armed checkpoints by herself.

She brought with her a wreath, a photo of her father and an Australian flag.

Wilma was alone in the cemetery, save for the Palestinian caretakers, when she finally found her father’s tombstone. Grave 3, Row A, of Section B, was where he lay.

“I just broke down, started crying,” she says.

“It was very emotional. I suppose, in some way, I’d like to go back, and take somebody else with me.”

But the site appears to have now been obliterated by IDF bulldozers. Military earthmoving has occurred within the last year to the southern corner of the cemetery. Satellite photographs show rows of gravestones removed and soil significantly disturbed across sections A and B of the cemetery, which hold the graves of second world war soldiers, the vast majority Australian. A substantial earth berm can be seen in the images, running through the middle of the disturbed area.

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.”

Wilma has been writing to the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, since October 2023, urging him to protect the sites and investigate and remediate any damage. She has been fobbed off, referred to the foreign affairs department or the Office of Australian War Graves.

“Your response referred me to the Dept.Foreign Affairs,” she wrote to the prime minister’s office in October 2023. “I consider this an abrogation of the responsibility of our national spokesperson, our PM. And to his responsibilities to those Australian Citizens so totally concerned at the genocide of Palestinians.”

“My father, a World War 2 soldier is buried in the Gaza War Cemetery along with some 200 other Australian soldiers. Perhaps the Prime Minister could find out whether the cemetery has been obliterated by nearby bombing and explain whether action will be taken to restore their gravesites or alternatively return their remains to Australia.”

Now, with the impending visit of the Israeli president, Isaac Herzog, Wilma wants the Albanese government to show the leadership she has been calling for.

At the very least, she wants pressure placed on Israel to allow staff from the Office of Australian War Graves into Gaza to assess the damage.

“I’d like them to raise it with the Israeli president,” she says.

“I think they’re passing the buck, continually referring it to the Australian war graves commission.”

The prime minister’s office has been contacted for comment.

Earlier this week, a spokesperson for Australia’s Department of Veterans’ Affairs told Guardian Australia there had been “significant damage” to the Gaza War Cemetery “and this includes the graves of Australians”.

“The Office of Australian War Graves is very concerned by the damage to the cemetery,” they said.

“The Commonwealth War Graves Commission plans to secure and repair the cemetery as soon as it is safe to do so, however, it is expected that full reconstruction will take some time as the immediate post-conflict priority for works will be directed to humanitarian efforts.”

On Friday the acting prime minister, Richard Marles, said the government was “obviously very concerned” about the destruction of Australian war graves in Gaza.

“We have clearly expressed our concern,” he said. “As soon as the situation is one where we can safely repair those graves, obviously, we will do that, but that’s clearly not what the situation is on this day.”

Wilma wrote a poem about her father. Its final lines hint at the power her father’s grave held in her heart and now, at the pain she endures at its loss.

“I stood at your grave in the Gaza sun, the smell of Eucalypts filling the air. My tears fell in the dust, it seemed unjust to lose you, so young – unfair.”

“And I wished you home to comfort and love, and those who cared.”

Additional reporting by Seham Tantesh in Gaza and Julian Borger in London