Talk:2014 Gaza War

Human shields

Our text currently reads that "[IDF] says Hamas was using the Gazan population as 'human shields';[20] an allegation denied by Hamas. " and "In response, Israel claimed that many civilian casualties were the result of Hamas using the Gazan population as 'human shields' at alleged missile launch targets,[196] an allegation denied by Hamas."

This text seems incorrect, as Hamas has on multiple occasions acknowledged using human shields,both during this conflict, and in general, and praised those who use that tactic as martyrs. (Although they have in other contexts denied it as well) How should we correctly describe this part?

Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri: "The people oppose the Israeli fighter planes with their bodies alone... I think this method has proven effective against the occupation. It also reflects the nature of our heroic and brave people, and we, the [Hamas] movement, call on our people to adopt this method in order to protect the Palestinian homes."

"We call on our Palestinian people, particularly the residents of northwest Gaza, not to obey what is written in the pamphlets distributed by the Israeli occupation army. We call on them to remain in their homes and disregard the demands to leave, however serious the threat may be"

• http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/182729#.U8kvA_nP3z4
• http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2014/07/hamas-encourages-civilians-to-ignore-warnings-act-as-human-shields-video/
• http://www.palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=157&doc_id=12019

Gaijin42 (talk) 14:47, 18 July 2014 (UTC)

Better source : http://www.newsweek.com/video-shows-gaza-residents-acting-human-shields-israeli-forces-258223Gaijin42 (talk) 14:58, 18 July 2014 (UTC)

Sami Abu Zuhri does not use the term "human shield". Besides, the video refers to practice that some Gazan residents have adopted where they would stand on the roof of targeted homes in hopes of preventing its bombing by Israel attacks, which is quite different from the conventional definition for human shield. Nevertheless, Israel continues to use such vague terms and explanations to defend its assault. Naturally, we would have to include the perspective of the other side as well. Hence the video cited for Hamas' denial. Al-Andalusi (talk) 15:01, 18 July 2014 (UTC)

How is that different than the conventional definition of human shield? That seems EXACTLY the definition to me? From the lede of the article you linked "placement of non-combatants in or around combat targets to deter the enemy from attacking these targets" Gaijin42 (talk) 15:09, 18 July 2014 (UTC)

Homes are not "combatant targets". Al-Andalusi (talk) 15:16, 18 July 2014 (UTC)

I would normally say that is a fair point, except for them being used repeatedly as launch sites for rockets, and the place where the combatants and leaders are. However, in the interest of compromise, is there a way that we could flesh out the current text? Something along the lines of "Hamas has denied used human shields, but has encouraged/praised people to/who go on roofs of homes and buildings to discourage them from being bombed by Israeli forces"? OR some other wording you think accurately captures Zuhri's statements? Gaijin42 (talk) 15:24, 18 July 2014 (UTC)

You mean like the bombing of the rehabilitation center for the severely disabled that killed 4 patients and their nurse, and it turns out the alleged Hamas member was not even home at the time? I think sentence you proposed is suggestive, and possibly violates WP:SYNTH. Note that the video has been discussed earlier at Talk:Operation_Protective_Edge#Human_Shield. Al-Andalusi (talk) 15:41, 18 July 2014 (UTC)

Not trying to justify any side, but what you do is sort of cherry picking. Most of IAF strikes are against legitimate targets (at least according to IDF intelligence), sites that are used as launch sites, hideouts or missile and weapon caches. Once in a while there are mistakes and wrong or unrelated target are being hit, and these do not represent the vast majority of airstrikes. According to IDF, more than 1500 airstrikes were used, and only very little of these actually hit these targets in which "disabled patients or children: were hit. This is a very small number by any means, although these are the only cases that are being shown in the social media, to provoke emotional responses. -Nomæd (Boris A.) (user, talk, contribs) 16:22, 18 July 2014 (UTC)

"pal watch" is not reliable source, but Washington Times is [1]. However, we all must respect some basic rules, including that this is not a place for discussion, who is to blame for this war. Our personal oppinions on this war are irrlevant for Wiipedia, we must edit without bias. Beside that, there are few other rules 1) 1rr, 2) WP:NPOV, that needs to be respected.--Tritomex (talk) 16:05, 18 July 2014 (UTC)

I agree entirely. My original point was that a statement by the hamas spokesperson about is surely notable and relevant enough for inclusion. Readers can determine how to interpret the statements from the various sides on their own. Gaijin42 (talk) 16:10, 18 July 2014 (UTC)

Request for comments

Current article text reads "[IDF] says Hamas was using the Gazan population as 'human shields';[20] an allegation denied by Hamas. ". Some sources (see sources below) have pointed out a video of an interview with Hamas spokesperson Sami Abu Zuhri which he is quoted (translated) as saying "The people oppose the Israeli fighter planes with their bodies alone... I think this method has proven effective against the occupation. It also reflects the nature of our heroic and brave people, and we, the [Hamas] movement, call on our people to adopt this method in order to protect the Palestinian homes" .

Should this quote or a brief summary of the sources discussing these statements and quotes be included in the context of the allegations of use of Human shields?

clarification The question is not "Should we say Hamas admitted to use of Human shields in video X" but "Should the video be mentioned, in the context that entities/sources X,Y, Z have brought it up in discussions/allegations about IF Hamas uses human shields". Gaijin42 (talk) 20:44, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

Snippets from the relevant sources discussing the quote/video for convinience

Newsweek : "Another video published on the site shows Sami Abu Zuhri, the Hamas spokesman in Gaza, encouraging people to use their bodies as human shields to further deter IDF strikes.". USA Today "Netanyahu says Hamas is using civilians as human shields. The Israel Defense Forces issued photographs on its blog Tuesday showing a crowd of people, including children, on a building's roof after Israel urged that it be evacuated.The blog also shows a July 15 video clip of Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri commending people for ignoring Israeli warnings. "The fact that people are willing to sacrifice themselves against Israeli warplanes in order to protect their homes, I believe this strategy is proving itself," Abu Zuhri said. WSJ "Earlier this month Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri appeared on Al-Aqsa TV and encouraged Gaza residents to act as human shields." Herald Sun "Again, Hamas knows that, which is perhaps why its spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri boasted on Al Aqsa TV on July 8 that Hamas’s tactic of using civilians as human shields “has been proven effective”." Asian Age "The Israeli Defence Forces, which circulated a video of Hamas spokesperson Sami Abu Zuhri encouraging the use of human shields, said that Hamas is instructing Gazan population to climb rooftops and protect its terrorists." TimesHerald (reprint of USA today) Washington Post "The Hamas spokesman, Sami Abu Zuhri, admitted July 8 that Hamas was using the Palestinians as human shields and that this had has proven to be effective." channel4 "Actually Hamas has made no secret of advocating the use of civilians as human shields to try to face down Israeli aggression.A senior spokesman for the group, Sami Abu Zuhri, gave an interview on Palestinian station al-Aqsa TV earlier this month." Globe and Mail "Hamas openly encourages civilians to act as human shields. Here’s what Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri had to say recently on Al-Aqsa TV (via the Middle East Media Research Institute): “This attests to the character of our noble, jihad-fighting people, who defend their rights and their homes with their bare chests and their blood … We in Hamas call upon our people to adopt this policy in order to protect the Palestinian homes.”" LA Times "Against this Israeli effort, Hamas employed a counter-strategy of trying to prevent civilians from heeding Israeli warnings. On July 8, Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri appeared on local television and called on Gazans to serve as human shields against Israeli air attacks." Time "What makes Hamas’ actions a double war crime is that they target civilians in Israel while exploiting civilians in Gaza and using them as human shields.Hamas is building its terror command centers and weapons storage facilities among schools, hospitals and mosques, showing no regard for civilian lives. Israel’s concerted efforts to avoid harming uninvolved civilians have been well documented. Hamas instructs the people in Gaza to ignore Israel’s phone calls, leaflets and text messages, warning civilians of pending attacks against terrorists. Knowingly, they put Palestinians in harm’s way turning them into propaganda tools.Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said in a television interview earlier this month, “the fact that people are facing Israeli warplanes bare-chested to protect their homes, I believe this procedure has proved its efficiency. And we in the Hamas movement call on our people to adopt this procedure.” Washington times 2 "But Hamas’ “Interior Ministry” has cynically instructed Gazans to ignore these warnings, and has encouraged their people to act as human shields. Hamas spokesperson Sami Abu Zuhri told the terror organization’s al-Aqsa TV network last week that instructing people to serve as human shields was an, “effective policy,” and one that, “reflects the character of our brave, courageous people.” He continued by blatantly stating, “We in Hamas call upon our people to adopt this policy.”

I have notified the NPOV, NOR, and RSN noticeboards about this RFC

Survey

• include as proposer. Gaijin42 (talk) 16:22, 18 July 2014 (UTC)

• include. The uncharacteristically bitter and POV tone of your reflections are not helping your cause, N. You usually contribute a well-balanced argument. However, I remain to be ultimately convinced, based on sober language and some bloody good RS. I did not expect the poor argument below from you. That's me editing after 6 cans of Strongbow Cider at 3am. You can do better than that. Please completely rework your argument, and avoid terms like Hasbara. Engage me, don't make me wince. Respectfully, Irondome (talk) 23:45, 18 July 2014 (UTC)
• Don't include When I read the quoted sentence, the only message I get is that people are really defenseless and are using their last weapons (lives) to protect their homes, and that, people who are not afraid of death may do every thing possible and hence do every thing to protect their homes. Don Juan says:"When one has nothing to lose, one becomes courageous. We are timid only when there is something we can still cling to." To me, it does not mean that they are encouraged to make a human shield against the planes but to do every thing they can for their homes and not to fear death. Mhhossein (talk) 04:19, 20 July 2014 (UTC)
• Include. It's relevant and sourced... why not? -- Ypnypn (talk) 16:41, 20 July 2014 (UTC)
• Comment A vague statement encouraging people to "oppose Israeli fighter planes with their bodies alone" is nowhere close to a definition of a human shield. It can just as well be read as a defiant attitude towards Israel. There has to be actual evidence of people either forced to, or explicitly being deliberately placed so as to shield combatants from attack, or to shield combat targets, to qualify as human shielding. Kingsindian (talk) 22:05, 20 July 2014 (UTC) --- Update: I have changed my vote to "include" for the reasons given elsewhere. Kingsindian (talk) 21:19, 1 August 2014 (UTC) --- Update: I have changed my mind again, mainly due to WP:UNDUE. I am going to simply "abstain" and leave my comment for purposes of discussion. Kingsindian (talk) 17:24, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
• Include There are well-sourced evidences that Hamas using civilians as human shields. MathKnight-at-TAU (talk) 12:00, 21 July 2014 (UTC)
• Include the exact quote if properly sourced, but not in juxtaposition to the human shields, as per Kingsindian. If there are reliable unbiased sources supporting the human shields, in juxtaposition to the Hamas denial. Robert McClenon (talk) 00:42, 23 July 2014 (UTC)
• Don't change/don't include - I've yet to see a black and white statement from Hamas leaders staying "Stay in your homes so that the Israelis will bomb you and you will be our shields" that's cited by reliable sources, or anything like that... what we have here are vague, unclear videos being referred to by mostly unreliable sources (GatewayPundit for once). I agree with Mhhossein and Kingsindian, essentially. For what it's worth, the article already includes the official Hamas line, as taken from CNN, that they encourage people to stay in their homes because they would be as unsafe (or more) if they were in public streets / areas. CoffeeWithMarkets (talk) 15:33, 25 July 2014 (UTC)
• Don't include. Of course it's inappropriate to include this. Even putting aside the largely inadmissible batch of sources, there's no reason to think that human shields are what's being referred to here. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 21:32, 25 July 2014 (UTC)
• Include explained that it's proof of a "human shield" strategy. Chris Troutman (talk) 00:57, 29 July 2014 (UTC)
• Include - The use of human shields is a serious accusation that is backed up by evidence.--FutureTrillionaire (talk) 13:06, 29 July 2014 (UTC)
• Don't include It is original research and requires a secondary source to connect the dots. A human shield is a non-combatant and involuntary. People who stood in front of tanks in Tiananman square were not human shields. Had they instead tied up Kindergardeners and laid them in front of the tanks, those children would have been human shields. TFD (talk) 19:36, 1 August 2014 (UTC)
• Don't include because in a highly charged context, the quote, whose context and translation are murky, becomes a reprehensible way of justifying the bombing of a civilian population. There's no way to pretend this isn't a political issue. -Darouet (talk) 04:34, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
• Don't include as it's WP:SYN to imply that the statement has any relation with Hamas using human shields. // Liftarn (talk)
• Don't include, basically per Liftarn. But. It is an identified ID propaganda meme, not appropriate to historical narrative, except to note that it is an Israeli meme used to sway Western public opinion. It is a vicious 'spin' on complex events, using one obscure quote to frame a battle strategy which has no other option than to fight from urban areas, as in every known war, and as Yitzhak Laor writing for the London Review of Books entitled a similar strategy, the taking point is to drive home to the world that 'You (Hamas) are terrorists, we (ID) are virtuous.' (Vol. 28 No. 16 · 17 August 2006 pp.11-12). Every single meme deployed by Israel's Foreign Ministry, the ID and many users in here to press this 'case' of cowardly warfare by Hamas has been cooked up in defiance of history, Jewish history in its most desperate moments, as Uri Avnery wrote some days ago:

For viewers of the Israeli media, Hamas is the incarnation of evil. We are fighting “terrorists.” We are bombing “terror targets” (like the home of the family of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh). Hamas fighters never withdraw, they “escape.” Their leaders are not commanding from underground command posts, they are “hiding.” They are storing their arms in mosques, schools and hospitals (as we did during British times). Tunnels are “terror tunnels.” Hamas is cynically using the civilian population as “human shields” (as Winston Churchill used the London population). Gaza schools and hospitals are not hit by Israeli bombs, God forbid, but by Hamas rockets (which mysteriously lose their way) and so on.'

If anyone tried to write the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, using the Nazi antisemitic spin that high casualties were caused by the use by the Jewish resistance of women and children as human shields, I'd not only automatically revert it: I'd report him.

The Poles' resistance in Warsaw is a Jewish resistance. Only yids are capable of the blackmail of putting women and children in the front line, to take advantage of the Germans' sense of scruple.' This obscene crap was reliably noted down by Mihail Sebastian Journal, 1935-1944, Pimlico, 2003 p.238, reporting what the antisemite (to the end of his life) Mircea Eliade said at the time.

Worst still, as I have often noted, the Israeli Supreme Court has condemned to IDF for the practice, and with impunity it is known to have consistently used Palestinian children to this end, from Jenin to Operation Cast Lead (see here, only one of numerous cases). Yanir Yagna, a Likud MK publicly called for deploying Palestinian prisoners (many without formal charges against them) as human shield against Qassam rockets. Of course that and dozens of other pieces of rhetorical shit people like myself notice are never worked into wiki pages. Or if they are, it's usually some POV-crank who does it. It was even used of Hezbollah, with even Amos Oz spouting it in 2006 ('this is not always an easy task, as Hizbullah missile-launchers often use Lebanese civilians as human sandbags,') only to be informed, if he ever troubled to follow up the technical literature, that Human Rights Watch in its report on the 2006 found to be completely unfounded, though it did find Israel had both repeatedly bombed both "individual vehicles and entire convoys of civilians who heeded the Israeli warnings to abandon their villages" as well as "humanitarian convoys and ambulances" that were "clearly marked,"(just as here).Nishidani (talk) 14:06, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

• Don't include - Seems like we'd be extrapolating a bit too much on one comment from one individual. NickCT (talk) 15:33, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
• Don't include per WP:UNDUE. The comment appears pulled out of obscurity, and the secondary opinion/interpretation that it relates to the concept of human shields is extraordinarily inflammatory, and I'm not seeing anywhere near the WP:WEIGHT to include it. Siawase (talk) 16:26, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
• Don't include Seems irrelevant what word-spin is going on, and also sources talk more of events and give statements than have cites talking about the wording of the statements so you'd wind up at fringe discussions or OR. Just do not driven there by prominence nor following something so do not go there. Markbassett (talk) 23:51, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

Threaded discussion

• 3 of the four sources you cite are RS only in the sense of the abbreviation for rat ####. Please read Human shield esp.this section and Neve Gordon and Nicola Peruigini, On 'human shielding' in Gaza Al-Jazeera 18 July 2014. Calls by Hamas to stay on and not flee are identical to the calls by Yishuv leaders to Jews in Kfar Etzion and Jerusalem to stay there and not flee. To spin this, as the IDF press handouts have repeatedly as compelling unwilling people at gunpoint to get killed, while militants hide behind them is, frankly, obscene. There are numerous examples from Masada right down to the present day in Jewish history, and world military history, of what is being spun here as a coerced stay-behind behaviour of civilians. Of course, it would be easier for Israel to request that all Hamas fighters emerge from their tunnels and play by the rules of war, as drones and F4 Fighter planes, and satellites pinpoint them, and the ultra-sophisticated guidance systems of tanks and drones liquidate them. That's the premise. Hamas militants are cowards, whereas the whole army shooting at a safe technological distance of miles is heroic, defending the fatherland while killing what remains of the adversary's.Nishidani (talk) 17:12, 18 July 2014 (UTC)

So, there are sources that are not rat ####, and in the other articles, we discuss the actions by Israel in a similar context. So your !vote is an include then? Gaijin42 (talk) 18:06, 18 July 2014 (UTC)

No. The Washington Post just picked up the hasbara, and we know from past studies this is propaganda. No one is editing in significant elements of the damage to the civilian population while people like yourself appear to be avid to press home a known piece of hasbara that implies all civilians deaths are forms of coerced suicide. Israel has, as anyone in the West Bank can tell you, consistently used kids as shields over the last 20 years, it has been condemned by Israel's Supreme Court for doing so, and persists. It now had the shamelessness to accuse Hamas of the very unmanly act its own troops have often employed, even in the last invasion of northern Gaza.

My point is that this is an IDF meme, not an element of the battle front, and the function of the meme is to suggest to readers that the casualties in Israel's onslaught, despite 10 documented cases in the Ist three days which look like war crimes because strike after strike whole families were wiped out, are not Israel's fault, but a result, as the IDF put out in the Kaware's case, of Hamas constraining people to expose themselves to the 'innocent' destruction of houses of human habitation. The article is (I could write 20 pages on this) already like an IDF handout, and further attempts to 'screw' the other POV, almost invisible, are unacceptable, esp. since editors here are wholly disinterested generally in any other story than the one spun by the 4th most powerful army in the world and its ally, (the United States of Amnesia), whose purity of arms every two years consists in massacring a captive population. Nishidani (talk) 21:49, 18 July 2014 (UTC)

My computer stalls whenever I open the Economist. The statement below looks like a reference to the Kaware family incident, it is false, or at least not factual. See under Kaware at List of Israeli strikes and Palestinian casualties in Operation Protective Edge.

Seven members of a family were killed when they climbed on the roof of their house to act as a human shield, however, their home was still struck despite their action.(Israelis and Palestinians: From two wrongs, ruin, The Economist)

Sources at the time of the article 12 often repeated this, and the Economist has taken it up. You need in-depth interviews to work what the motives were. In the Kaware case, it appears some children went on the roof to check out the damage to a solar heating device hit by a rocket (which they took to be a near-miss, as the family thought the danger period had passed and reentered the house). Nishidani (talk) 20:30, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

I removed the addition by Gaijin42 as it violates WP:SYNTH:

• Statement 1: "...Hamas is using human shields, they have pointed to the storage of weapons in schools, videos and photographs showing civilians on rooftops of buildings".
• Statement 2: "a video of Hamas spokesperson Sami Abu Zuhri saying 'The fact that people are willing to sacrifice themselves against Israeli warplanes in order to protect their homes, I believe this strategy is proving itself'."

Al-Andalusi (talk) 21:09, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

It does not violate synth, the very first reference includes all of those points. As for the Kaware family, the New York times has a direct quote from the Kaware family saying "Our neighbors came in to form a human shield" http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/09/world/middleeast/by-phone-and-leaflet-israeli-attackers-warn-gazans.html Gaijin42 (talk) 21:12, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

And I note that your quotes dropped the attribution which was "As evidence of Israel's allegations that Hamas is using human shields, they have pointed to the" which makes it clear that this is a statement by a party, and not a fact in wikipedia's voice. Gaijin42 (talk) 21:17, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

That is the New York Times. The B'tselem report gives a completely different account. There are in fact several conflicting versions, as one would expect from rapid interviews in an area under bombardment. What is known is that this is a meme strongly favoured by the Israeli government spinning of the high civilian casualty rate, as it has been in the two preceding wars. On the ground interviews with numerous survivors are numerous, and popular opinion in Gaza denies that their relatives, or themselves, are shot at, bombed or killed because Hamas orders them to behave as shields. You can get this in Peter Beaumont's coverage of the famous Beit Hanoun donkey herder, or in Hamas using human shields? Gazans deny claims, or any number of articles. The reasons people stay put include Hamas's desire that they do so, their own preference to stay knit together in their homes rather than outside, their fatalism (Inshallah), the lack of nearby shelters. As one person said:"Where do we go to? Some people moved from the outer edge of Khan Younis to Khan Younis centre after Israelis told them to, then the centre got bombed. People have moved from this area to Gaza City, and Gaza City has been bombed. It's not Hamas who is ordering us in this, it's the Israelis."

Given the ideological spinning, bravery and defiance even, confidence that standing on roofs saved some houses years ago, why not now, with outs, etc. in short cultural practices and beliefs, and physical difficulties in moving round a war zone, the extensive focus in that section on Israel's singular meme is WP:Undue. If the NYTs says one thing, and B'tselem another, on the Kaware family, you just can't cite the former as the true version of people's motives. It may happen to be, indeed, what one member of the Kaware family believed, but that may be an exception. It may be a boast, it may be a way of a survivor proving his loyalty to the Hamas government after a truce, to secure a benefit from Hamas authorities, if he, and they are still alive. Life is complex, motivations idem, and war reportage that ignores these complexities and peculiarities is, just that, POV spinning by military and political parties. Nishidani (talk) 22:04, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

I have many issues with Gaijin42's edit. 1. There is a RfC over whether to use the Hamas leader's statement in conjunction with human shields. I opposed it there and still oppose it now. The statement by the Hamas leader is notable, but it is not a call for human shielding, and it certainly does not show that people stayed in their homes because of Hamas forcing them to. I haven't heard any arguments there as to how it counts as human shielding. Even if one calls it "shielding", it does not count as "human shielding" unless the Hamas leader asked them to shield combat targets and not their homes. From the comments there, I do not see much agreement there either. 2. The USA today article simply attributes the "human shields" claim to Israel and mentions the Hamas video and then it quotes the IDF blog directly. It does not render any judgement about whether it counts as human shielding. I don't know if the claim becomes more respectable, just because it is laundered through a source (USA Today) which takes the claim directly from Israel and regurgitates it on the its pages. 3. What about the B'Tselem investigation of the Kaware family mentioned by Nishidani, which deals with this issue in detail? 4. This business of giving warnings etc. There have been reports of Hamas's assurances making people complacent and thus they didn't leave. First of all, the Goldstone commission even last time addressed this issue, saying that in the vast majority of the cases, after the calls to evacuate etc. there was no attack. They concluded it was more of psychological warfare than anything else. This also the point made here: [2] Ordering out 100,000 people from their homes is not a legitimate strategy. Secondly, the responsibility does not end just because you give a warning to evacuate. This has been addressed by B'Tselem in the analysis of the Kaware family. 5. Finally, if this statement is to be included anyway over my objections, I would request that some other word than "evidence" be used since I do not see this as much evidence of human shielding. Kingsindian (talk) 22:11, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

I have no objection to changing "evidence" to some other word(s) that means "this is what israel pointed to to support their allegations"

ordering people out of their homes to wander off from a potential danger zone goes back to the 1948 war, and one reason the city of Lydda was ethnically cleansed was to throw 50,000 people onto the Jordanian army and fuck up its food and equipment logistics for war, by forcing on it the duty of coping with civilians. Numerous other examples come to mind of war tactics. Throwing 150,000 people out of their homes by warnings has all sorts of secondary calculations like these (creating popular disenchantment with Hamas if it can't cope being not the least of them) not only those regarding the need to clear an area so it can be carpetbombed.Nishidani (talk) 22:18, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

If you wish to put in sourced arguments or statements to the contrary, do so. But this is a statement by the spokesperson of Hamas, and allegations by Israel that are discussed in numerous top tier sources. If we censored every statement or incident that was disputed by the beligerents it would lead this to be a very empty article wouldn't it? WP:NPOV mandates inclusion of every notable POV. Is it your argument that this POV has not been widely discussed? Gaijin42 (talk) 22:49, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

My objections have been pretty much conveyed by editor 'Kingsindian'. The current placement of Abu Zuhri's quote is strongly implying that Abu Zuhri (and thus Hamas) are encouraging people to shield combat targets and places where weapons are stored. That is NOT what he said and you know that very well, and no amount of sources making such connection will justify its inclusion in the manner you have put here. Never mind the fact that the usage of "human shield" here is entirely misleading to begin with. Al-Andalusi (talk) 16:09, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

Multiple reliable sources have discussed the quote, directly in the context of the question of if Hamas uses human shields or not. If you have reliable sources disputing this association, please present them and include them as a counterargument in the text. Otherwise your objection is WP:OR Gaijin42 (talk) 16:29, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

Which "reliable reference" conflates between the "storage of weapons in schools" AND Abu Zuhri's call for civilians to stay at targeted areas? While the term "human shields" is used, none of your sources interprets Abu Zuhri's statement as one intended to protect combat targets or storage sites. They all seem to agree that it is reference to the protection of people's own homes (how dare they). The content you added and the way it is presented is implying that Abu Zuhri demanded that people stand firm on top of rocket launchers and accept Israel's air strikes, which is a distortion of what he actually said and I believe that falls under WP:SYNTH. Al-Andalusi (talk) 17:41, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

Seeing that you have not responded for days. I removed the problematic content. Al-Andalusi (talk) 16:35, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

Apologies for the lack of response, I have had various emergencies at work that limited my wikipedia time. I have restored the content. Multiple entities have mentioned the statement, in the context of human shields, along with the other elements discussed. They are not conflated, but they are all discussed as items that people use to back the allegation of human shields. If a source writes a paragraph about each item, and we say "They pointed out A, B, C , and D" that is just WP:SUMMARY not any WP:OR or WP:SYNTHGaijin42 (talk) 17:24, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

It seems to me that the best wording is something like: Israeli has asserted that Hamas uses 'human shields' to defend militants and weapons based on Israeli's analysis of videos and photographs showing civilians on rooftops of buildings, allegations that Hamas has rejected. Or what would you all suggest?

In terms of Zuhri's quote, it's not clear at all (as referred to by many people in the RFC) that's he calling for people to submit themselves into being shields. Putting that spin on it is, well, just that: a certain Israeli-based spin, which is their legitimate POV to assert but shouldn't be written as just a fact. Word it like: Israelis have also cited __'s comment of "__", which they argue is a call for human shielding but Hamas has disputed.? CoffeeWithMarkets (talk) 03:16, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

CoffeeWithMarketsObviously various people (including myself) may have issues with some final unknown wording, but I think words roughly to the effect of what you have proposed are workable. Israel (and multiple reliable sources) have pointed to certain events and stated an interpretation. That interpretation disputed. I have no objection to categorizing things as the WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV of the relevant parties nor providing space for the contrary POV (assuming such can be sourced)- but several above have stated that the allegations/interpretation cannot even be presented, and that is unacceptable. Gaijin42 (talk) 14:46, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

ll of the "sources" used are opinion pieces (and appear to be from highly partisan ones) and therefore not reliable for making the statement that Hamas admitted to using human shields. It is not obvious from the statement that Hamas was admitting to using human shields. They do not say they are forcing non-combatants to stand between them and the Israelis, nor do they say they are in violation of the Geneva Convention. Whether in fact they are using human shields is another issue, but twisting a statement into a confession is tendentious. TFD (talk) 19:58, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

The Four Deuces Times, Newsweek, LaTimes (right wing rag if I ever heard of one!), UsaToday are all partisan? In any case, the RFC is not "Should way say Hamas admitted it" but "should this quote even be discussed" - The current article text clearly says Israel alleges Human shields, and as part of that allegation points to the video. Gaijin42 (talk) 20:14, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

No they are not partisan, but they publish opinions of people of various views, including partisans of both sides. Claiming that an editorial published in one of these sources is a statement made by the publication is misleading. For example you just posted on my talk page a quote that you attributed to the Globe and Mail., which you also cited above, claiming that Hamas had admitted using human shields. The actual source is an opinion piece by Margaret Wente, a highly partisan columnist for the Globe and Mail who, among other things, has written that Canada should become part of the U.S. Do you understand the difference between news reporting, opinions of publications and the opinions of people asked to contribute their opinions to newspaper columns? TFD (talk) 20:25, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

The Four Deuces Yes I do. I also understand the difference between trying to say something in wikipedia's voice, and saying that X has made allegation Y and pointed to Video Z as part of that allegation. or that Z exists and people can make their own judgement about what it means. Nobody on wikipedia is proposing saying "Hamas admitted to using Human shields in this video" (although I admit my statement in the section PRIOR to the RFC can be read that way). There are allegations and discussions about human shields. This video is mentioned repeatedly in those allegations and discussions. Should our article mention the video? Gaijin42 (talk) 20:39, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

I am fine with attributing the claim to some proper source, like Israel and some commentators, or something like that. While it is of course preposterous drivel to me, unfortunately a lot of people, like thos who Gaijin42 cited, do believe in drivel; who am I to say they shouldn't get space on Wikipedia? Properly attributed, the inclusion is fine. Kingsindian (talk) 21:01, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

Kingsindian Would you be so kind as to update your !vote to that effect? Once the matter of basic inclusion is settled, I think conformance to WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV should not be an issue. Gaijin42 (talk) 21:04, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

• Comment' Unarchived section. Armbrust ^{The Homunculus} 20:02, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Close per three month moratorium on move discussions set at Talk:2014 Israel–Gaza conflict/Archive 2#Requested move. Repeated move discussions in very close succession are disruptive. Timrollpickering (talk) 17:04, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

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Future date stamp to keep this from being archived for the duration of the moratorium. Advance Timrollpickering (talk) 12:50, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

Plenty of sources appear to be calling this a war by now, many by the term "Gaza War". There was a Gaza War in 2008, but perhaps we should name this article to something similar sooner or later. Here are some sources:

• The New York Times
• The Wall Street Journal
• CNN
• New York Post
• Gannett
• Haaretz
• USA Today

There's likely a lot more.--ɱ (talk) 16:55, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

I agree with you. "Conflict" is a serious understatement. But first you need to submit a formal move request.--FutureTrillionaire (talk) 21:18, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, the above is mainly just to draw people's attention to the necessity. I don't personally want to be active in such a move debate.--ɱ (talk) 21:22, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

Would "Second Gaza War" be the likely title destination? Tandrum (talk) 19:04, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

I don't think "Second Gaza War" is currently being used by sources. "2014 Gaza war" or "Gaza war (2014)" will probably be the likely titles.--FutureTrillionaire (talk) 23:31, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

2014 Israel–Gaza conflict → Gaza War (2014) – Per the above. Fitzcarmalan (talk) 14:34, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

"Handful of journalists"

@WarKosign: The quote "out of 710 foreign journalists, only a handful..." comes directly from the article and is not WP:OR. I have reverted the edit here. Kingsindian (talk) 22:44, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

I don't think this is evidence enough to be added. It's making the assumption that because "only a handful" have come out, that no one else has had this experience. Knightmare72589 (talk) 00:32, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

@Knightmare72589: The article does not make any such assumption. And that is not the correct question anyway: you should not invert the burden of proof. The burden is on someone who wants to demonstrate censorship, not someone who wants to demonstrate absence.

In any case, if you read the article, it interviews a large sample of journalists including from the New York Times and European press, with almost all of them saying there was little or no censorship. It gives all the details of why there was little censorship, because many of the high fighting areas were too dangerous for journalists to go into anyway. And even otherwise, Hamas fighters were almost never seen because they were afraid of getting caught by Israeli drone and video surveillance. So they mention that it was not possible for Hamas to censor news, because they were not present on the ground. Against this, the article discusses the Israeli govt. allegations of Hamas censorship within the article. There are very few journalists who have reported censorship. Claims of censorship should be reported, but only given its due weight. At the moment, most of the evidence of censorship is from a "handful" of journalists and Israeli govt. sources. And that is how it should be presented.

One final point: the sentence you have added that some people "refuse to comment because they plan to go to Gaza" is not proof of censorship. The source talks about only one reporter who claims that there was censorship. The sentence and the source does not belong in the section because giving one report its own paragraph would be WP:UNDUE Kingsindian (talk) 02:22, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

"The article does not make any such assumption."

Yes it does. That is the point of the article. It is saying that since a "handful" have reported this, that the issue is non-existent.

"In any case, if you read the article, it interviews a large sample of journalists including from the New York Times and European press, with almost all of them saying there was little or no censorship."

One can easily use the same terminology from their own article. There wasn't a "large" sample. It gave a few individual examples. This could be called "a handful" of journalists. They certainly didn't get the opinion of all the other ~700 or so journalists. I counted around 8 or so journalists opinions in that article. About the same amount of journalists who claim they were threatened.

"There are very few journalists who have reported censorship."

Exactly. Those who have reported. There are journalists who have said they were censored said they were able to say so because they were out of Gaza. There are journalists who are still in Gaza. Another article said that other journalists refuse to comment on it because they plan to return to Gaza.

"At the moment, most of the evidence of censorship is from a "handful" of journalists and Israeli govt. sources. And that is how it should be presented."

Only a "handful" of journalists claiming this does not mean there are not more. I'd hate to make this analogy, but for police to make the claim that domestic abuse reports are low because of what was reported does not mean those are all the examples. We all know that these kind of cases, much of the time, they are not reported for fear of retribution. So to make this claim of threatening journalists seem that since only a certain amount have reported it does not mean that it doesn't happen more often.

"One final point: the sentence you have added that some people "refuse to comment because they plan to go to Gaza" is not proof of censorship. The source talks about only one reporter who claims that there was censorship"

False. It said and I quote: "The Jerusalem Post attempted on Thursday to contact ten journalists who reported from Gaza in recent weeks. Of the few who responded most declined to be interviewed, even on condition of anonymity, as they plan to return to Gaza to report." The part I added in the article was not about the journalist later in the JPost article. It is entirely POV to make it seem like since only a few have reported it, that others not experienced it and not to document those that have. This section should have individual claims from each side, not make it seem like a numbers game. The overall point I'm making, is that in that article, only a handful of journalists claim they weren't threatened, as did only a handful of journalists who claim they were. The other ~700 or so journalists have not stated their opinion, so to make it as though their silence means they side with those who haven't been threatened is POV. Knightmare72589 (talk) 03:04, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

@Knightmare72589: I agree that the quote can be misleading, so I have rewritten the section. As to your other point: people not willing to comment is not evidence of censorship, exactly as I stated. I don't know why you quoted the line back to me when I said exactly that. Anyway, you can see this edit. Perhaps it is acceptable to you. If not we can discuss it further. Kingsindian (talk) 03:17, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

I still don't think that is acceptable enough. Saying "many foreign journalists" is incorrect. As I stated before, about the same amount of journalists claim they weren't threatened as those who said they were. And the edit you made seems like it says Haaretz interviewed the remaining ~700 or so. It doesn't make that claim. It only says that out of the 709 that were in Gaza, a handful have come out and claimed they were threatened. The Haaretz article says "all the foreign correspondents interviewed for this piece insisted that it doesn't exist, and not because they wouldn't have liked to obtain such pictures." It's talking about those that are mentioned in the article, not that they interviewed all 709. As you said, the quote is a bit misleading. I think either the section should contain around an equal amount of claims from both sides or the "handful" comment should be clarified that most of the journalists have not given their opinion. Knightmare72589 (talk) 03:27, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

@Knightmare72589: That is not the way it works. The weights of the different evidence is not the same.

• Let's assume for the moment that there are the same number of journalists who claim they were threatened as the number of people interviewed by Haaretz. Neither is strictly scientific random sampling, but they still are of vastly different weight. The former group is by self-selection, it only contains people who are threatened. The latter group is a sample of journalists, who are not initially known whether they were threatened or not. They were then asked whether they were intimidated. The second sampling procedure is much better than the first. If such a group says there was no censorship, it carries much more weight.
• The piece discusses various reasons as to why the claims of censorship do not make much sense. I have already made these points in the first response. Kingsindian (talk) 03:55, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

This second-guessing sources is unacceptable. 710 journalists were present: only a few made the comments about feeling intimidated. The source is impeccable, and that therefore is what we say (handful/few) until reportage on the theme or meme changes. It is pointless trying to argue around or under or over what excellent sources say. So stop the nonsense.Nishidani (talk) 09:22, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

"A few of the journalist did not report being intimidated by Hamas" - this must mean that the rest were intimidated, right ? The fact that even one journalist was intimidated is important and casts reliability of all the reports made from Gaza in a different light - WarKosign (talk) 16:53, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

@Kingsindian:, @Nishidani: You guys are trying to make a mountain out of a mole hill in terms of those who said they were not intimated. The facts are the facts. About the same number of journalists who said they weren't threatened is about the same amount who said they were threatened. You cannot claim that those who said they weren't threatened is "many" while those who said they were is a "handful". Haaretz did not interview all 709. They only interviewed the number that they quoted in the article. Silence on the part of the vast majority of journalists who did not comment is not being in agreement with those who said they weren't threatened. You're purposely distorting the facts and subtly pushing a POV. As I suggested earlier; either compile a list of journalists from each side, or highlight the fact that the vast majority of journalists have not given their opinion. Knightmare72589 (talk) 22:17, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

@WarKosign: I have removed your edit here per WP:UNDUE. The paragraph already has enough detail about intimidation, right at the first paragraph. This paragraph is an adequate summary of the situation, no need to add details from each individual case. Kingsindian (talk) 09:37, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

@Kingsindian:I think this case was important because it demonstrated that the reporter remained intimidated even after leaving Gaza, and what exactly the intimidation was about - showing Hamas operatives in action.

On another subject, I have a problem with Haaretz quote: it says that many foreign journalists and found that "all but a few of the journalists deny any such pressure". The link doesn't let me see the quote unless I register. Is it valid for a reference to not be verifiable ? I think it showed more of the article last time I looked and it did say "all but a few" or something alike, but I do not remember seeing a claim that they interviewed enough people for it to be representative. - WarKosign (talk) 11:52, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

@WarKosign:

• As to why I removed your edit, the first sentence of the paragraph: "Photographers said that they were questioned, threatened or had equipment confiscated after taking pictures of Hamas operatives preparing to shoot rockets from within civilian structures, or fighting in civilian clothing" already makes the same point. No need to add details
• You can see the Google Cache here. The "All" in "All but a few" of course refers to a subset which they interviewed. They did not interview all 700 journalists. As I have explained already, this sample is neither strictly scientific nor large enough, but it carries much more weight weight than an equally small self-selected sample of journalists who report intimidation. And the Haaretz source is impeccable and it is a very detailed article with reasons presented. Kingsindian (talk) 12:01, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

@Kingsindian:, @Nishidani: The Foreign Press Association has made a statement about this. "Hamas is using threats and pressure to prevent journalists from providing objective reports, the Foreign Press Association in Israel and Palestine said in a statement Monday. The organization said it "protests in the strongest the blatant, incessant, forceful and unorthodox methods employed by the Hamas authorities and their representatives against visiting international journalists in Gaza over the past month. "The international media are not advocacy organizations and cannot be prevented from reporting by means of threats or pressure, thereby denying their readers and viewers an objective picture from the ground," the FPA added. According to the FPA, several members of the foreign media in Gaza were harassed, threatened or questioned about stories they reported. "We have received strict orders that if we record that Hamas fires rockets or that they shoot, we will face serious problems and be expelled from Gaza. Also Sunday, Hamas said it will require foreign journalists covering Gaza to provide information about Palestinian translators and fixers, as well as the address where they are staying."

I suggest you change the text in the article. You are pushing a POV and distorting the facts. Knightmare72589 (talk) 16:20, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

I suggest you get off your highmare, and look at the evidence. I wrote:-

The source is impeccable, and that therefore is what we say (handful/few) until reportage on the theme or meme changes.

The source http://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/Foreign-Press-Association-blasts-Hamas-for-threatening-journalists-370755 statement you introduce is interesting, and contradicts what several sources, state. The Anshel Pfeffer source said 3 days ago:-

Of the 710 foreign journalists who crossed into Gaza during Operation Protective Edge, only a handful have claimed they were intimidated by Hamas or produced hitherto unpublished footage of rockets being fired from civilian areas, such as the pictures filmed by Indian channel NDTV, which were shown at the Netanyahu briefing. Maybe such footage will still emerge — all the foreign correspondents interviewed for this piece insisted that it doesn’t exist, and not because they wouldn’t have liked to obtain such pictures. Reporter after reporter returning from Gaza has spoken of how, with the notable exception of spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri, Hamas fighters melted away during the warfare, even abandoning their regular checkpoint at the entrance to the Strip from Erez, so no one was checking the journalists’ passports. “I wasn’t intimidated at any point,” says one seasoned war reporter. “I didn’t feel Hamas were a threat to my welfare any more than Israeli bombings. I’m aware some people had problems, but nothing beyond what you would expect covering a conflict. Hamas’s levels of intimidation weren’t any worse than what you occasionally experience at the hands of the IDF, which didn’t allow access to fighting for most of the conflict either. As a rule no armed forces permit you to broadcast militarily sensitive information.”

Paul Mason, Truth and propaganda: the other two foes in Gaza’s war The Guardian 10 August 2014 wrote a day ago.

If an advanced society ever gets into the kind of war Gaza has been through, I would expect tighter controls on information: strict censorship on what can be tweeted, partial switch-offs of the internet and restrictions on reporters' movements. The absence of these things on the Gazan side made the war reportable through social media.'

When the Jerusalem Post, with the inevitable hand of the Gatestone Institute's Khaled Abu Toameh, comes up, caution is required.

Jodi Rudoren, a very pro-Israeli journalist for the decidedly pro-Israeli New York Times immediately tweeted in response to it:

Jodi Rudoren

@joshmitnick Every reporter I've met who was in Gaza during war says this Israeli/now FPA narrative of Hamas harassment is nonsense 5:30 PM - 11 Aug 2014

The New York Times has been noted repeatedly for having an anti-Israel bias. The assertion that it is pro-Israel is nonsense. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Alistriwen (talk • contribs) 10:05, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

The FPA statement is new, must be registered, but does not decide the issue. We have source conflict, and even, in the case of the FPA, a senior correspondent of the NYTS based in Jerusalem dismissing it as crap. The FPA statement is still fingering only a handful of people.

According to the FPA, several members of the foreign media in Gaza were harassed, threatened or questioned about stories they reported.

This does not contradict what Haaretz and now Jodi Rudoren and Paul Mason have stated. A final two points. It is by no means clear what the complaints are about. Are they generic, or Hamas objections to immediate twitter and facebook photos and reports of them firing rockets, or of photos of them dressed as civilians as they emerge. These are issues of maintaining militant identities and their zones protected as operations are underway. I hope further analysis as this becomes topical, as it must, will clarify this.

Finally, since Israeli strikes killed 8 journalists covering the war in Gaza as of 31 July. Several days later the International Federation of Journalists vigorously protested stating that 13 Press operatives had been killed by Israeli bombings. The list is here Have we these two bits in our article? (How many did Hamas kill?) If you wish a section development, why not also note that several Israeli sources have complained of how Israeli journalists have marched in lockstep in reporting only one side of the war, and that Gideon Levy 's life has been threatened so that Haaretz has been forced to hire a 24 hour bodyguard watch on him? (Uri Avnery The Gaza conflict: losers and consequences Redress Information & Analysis August 08, 2014). I've no problem with a full expansion of all this. Go ahead, but with all angles covered.

In sum, in the fog of war, and propaganda, complexity is the norm, nothing is as it seems, and editors dedicated to NPOV should not be pressing home some truth advantage. The section requires careful attention to all of the various sources existing on this, and should start by stating 710 accredited journalists were there, state several have complained, adding names if you like, and then showing the source conflict between Haaretz, the Guardian, and the Jerusalem Post, while adding also the number of journalists killed and wounded.Nishidani (talk) 19:38, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

@Nishidani: I included the IFJ statement on killing of 8 journalists earlier. This was one of the reasons I was not in favour of going on and on about this. There is something strange in having one line for the killing of 8 journalists, and a paragraph on the intimidation of journalists. Kingsindian (talk) 20:04, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

Sorry for missing that (it's now 13). Articles that are so relentlesly edited are a nightmare, and one usually just waits until people get bored, and then fixes them. WP:WEIGHT violation then. I.e. editors must not allow one party's POV focus to dominate. There is no room here for a paragraph on journalist intimidation in any case.

Once again, I expect you to change the article. Change the terminology with the Hararetz article from "many" to something else. As I've pointed out countless times, around the same amount are on each side, and the vast majority of journalists have not stated their opinion. You cannot put more weight into one side than the other by subtly changing the terminology. You also cannot discredit an entire organization saying their employees were being threatened just because it goes against your POV. You are very clearly pushing a POV. Tell me. What constitutes "many" for journalists who claim they weren't threatened? 1? 10? 100? How about those who claim they were threatened? And I expect excerpts from the article from the Foreign Press Association to be added. Knightmare72589 (talk) 20:19, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

You are not responding to the issues raised. We don't second guess articles but wondering what the 'silent majority might really think'. Articles are grounded in Rs, not in our dissatisfaction with reliable sources. We simply have no remit to rephrase what they say because we are unhappy with things we expect to be in them, but are not. Your 'expectations' are fine, but you are obliged to convince other editors that they are reasonable. So far, you are trying to undercut a simple statement in Haaretz you dislike and overplay a POV you think is true.Nishidani (talk) 20:28, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

You just said you don't get to second guess articles, yet complain about the NYT, etc being "very pro-Israel". I will say it once again. You need to change the terminology. No where in the Haaretz article does it say "many". About the same number for journalists are on each side, while the vast majority have not given their opinion. Saying "many" while it's the same amount on each side is pushing a POV by making it seem like more than there actually is. It needs to be a more neutral term, such as several. My issue is not with Haaretz, it's with you pushing your POV by distorting what actually happened and what was actually said. Knightmare72589 (talk) 20:37, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

Second guess means you were criticizing an article (rs) for failing to say what you expected it should have said in your view of the reality. Check any dictionary. I didn't second guess anything. What I said of both Jodi Rudoren and the New York Times is documented in articles by their colleagues. Jodi Rudoren is a member of FPA, and she has dismissed that note as 'nonsense'. So there's a mystery. So bide your time until some light is thrown on this obscure story. Repetition is not an argument. You are asking for expansion of a section that is already, according to Kingsindian, undue, and thus violates NPOV. If that is inserted, everything I noted above has to be inserted with equal weight and the section becomes several paragraphs.Nishidani (talk) 20:48, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

By the way, the FPA has recently condemned the IDF'S assaults on journalists, in demonstrations earlier, and on July 23:

The FPA strongly condemns deliberate official and unofficial incitement against journalists working to cover the current warfare under very difficult circumstances as well as forcible attempts to prevent journalists and TV crews from carrying out their news assignments. While we do not condone the use of invective by any side, outright attacks on journalists are absolutely unacceptable.On Tuesday, IDF forces aimed live fire at the Al Jazeera offices in Gaza City. The offices are on the 11th floor of a known commercial centre. The IDF apologised claiming it was in error and said they would investigate the incident.Also Tuesday, FPA member Firas Khatib of BBC Arabic was physically attacked and abused in the midst of a live feed on the Israeli side of the border. July 23, 2014

I.e. put your point in, and immediately one is obliged to give the rest of what FPA said.Nishidani (talk) 20:54, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

I'll add some fuel to your fire: http://www.terrorism-info.org.il/en/article/20699 "During the first days of Operation Protective Edge Hamas forged a policy for media reports to be implemented by local and foreign correspondents covering the fighting. Its objectives were to prevent reports that would prove Israel's claims of Hamas use of Gazan civilians as human shields, and to reinforce the propaganda theme that Israel deliberately attacked civilians and committed war crimes." "During Operation Protective Edge local journalists were careful to follow Hamas' policy guidelines, among other reasons out of the concern for their own safety" "Hamas never allowed foreign correspondents access to military sites attacked by Israel, whether they were bases, rocket launching sites or other targets. The organization's dead and wounded operatives were not photographed and therefore, from a media point of view, they do not exist" "Third, it was obvious that Hamas was firing rockets from civilian areas, but Hamas operatives forbid camera teams from filming them, because they did not want to reveal the tactic or the locations of the launch sites" - WarKosign (talk) 13:51, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

The source Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center is not reliable, since as the name indicates its stated policy is to view the people Israel occupies according to all observers, as 'terrorists' whenever they oppose, as they are legally entitled to manu militari or otherwise, that occupation. This plays in the US but is not taken seriously outside by analysts who, as editors should, prefer factual details to colourful language. Area journalists of great distinction and with no Pro- Palestinian brief, contradict the report, in any case. They all say that they never went near Hamas operational sites because that would have been suicidal, as would it have been for Israel to have embedded reporters cover the Shuja'iyya or Khuza'a operations where soldiers were under fire.Nishidani (talk) 19:30, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

There is more detail on this in an article by Matthew Kalman [Foreign press divided over Hamas harassment] Haaretz 13 August 2014, which has grist for anyone's mill. We should note that opinion is divided among journalists, if we want to avoid creating a long section with the inevitable balancing of 'no's and 'yes's'. Nishidani (talk) 10:02, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

This section is still hugely unsatisfactory. The intimidation part takes over half the section, while the killing part is only a couple of lines. It is wildly WP:UNDUE. One part needs to be drastically condensed, or the other expanded. Kingsindian (talk) 06:42, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

Still hugely unsatisfactory, in fact worse than before. Kingsindian (talk) 14:51, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Confusing and/or deceptive wording in the introduction.

The introduction to this article is either deceptively or erroneously constructed so as to portray this conflict as having been initiated by Israeli air-strikes into Gaza. It makes no mention of easily accessible information such as this : http://mfa.gov.il/mfa/foreignpolicy/terrorism/pages/palestinian_ceasefire_violations_since_end_operation_cast_lead.aspx which demonstrate that rocket fire from Gaza into Israel did not begin with the operation in the West Bank but was in fact ongoing since June of 2013 and only increased in June of 2014. Rocket fire therefore never ceased but rather increased and this is an important fact to mention. It is also worth clarifying that the rocket fire was not in response to Israeli air-strikes but was in fact an increase after the kidnapping and murder of the three Israeli teenagers. Rocket fire then increased again when Israel retaliated for the first increase in rocket fire. These facts are all easily established through careful reading of the news on the subject in a chronological fashion. In a conflict already so rife with misinformation and which generates more interest than any other in the world, it is of the utmost importance that wikipedia be as accurate and unbiased as possible. As it is written now, the narrative falsely paints Israel as the aggressor when the facts do not establish this, and in fact point in the other direction. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Alistriwen (talk • contribs) 09:57, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

There are also alleged violations of ceasefire by Israel, and people repeatedly try to add them into the lead paragraph or the background. I think it would be best to define where chronologically this article begins, what should be in it, and where should the rest go. As long as this page is called "2014 conflict", anything that happened in 2014 and wasn't in perfect harmony fits. I think this page should deal only time period of Operation Protective Edge (with or without it being the actual title), from the beginning to the final ceasefire agreement. There is already an article dealing with Operation Pillar of Defense, and what's lacking is a list of alleged violations in between. It can be either on a separate page, or in the Israel-Gaza conflict timeline. - WarKosign (talk) 11:14, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

A government source puts over a government viewpoint, as that is determined by politicians. Numerous observers, as cited in the text, contradict what that official source states. One can add that as Israel's official POV, but it cannot outweigh the statistical evidence provided by multiple sources from non-government analyses. All you are saying (Alistriwen) is that Israel's official view happens to be the truth of the matter. I don't care where the narrative goes in terms of assigning priority or blame: all I care for is the use of sources that state what is verifiable in reliable sources, and Nathan Thrall has more independence, his job depends on it, than the mfa, which ignores what its own officials and intelligence organizations admit. Thirdly, wars are started by one of two or more parties. If this is ascertainable, it does not violate NPOV to state the fact. Whether this is the case here is another matter. So far authoritative observers note the sequence, and comment that the war was not initiated by a Hamas assault on Israel. The background is there, to be tweaked, if there are different versions of thed sequence of events than the ones given.

WarKosign. This is not about what Israel did in a military operation. This is how a conflict, crystallized by that operation, is perceived by both sides, and analysts. Much of what would be a narrative has been gutted from the page already, and your proposal is to proceed further in making it basically about Reactions and impacts. There is almost nothing, proportionately, on the details on that operation and Hamas's response, and continual forking into subpages looks very odd.Nishidani (talk) 18:51, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

@Nishidani: The source I listed is governmental and yes it is only one but are you actually intimating that the government of a country which has purview to all events going on within that country is less reliable than independent people with agendas who have no real way of ascertaining facts on the ground? The proof of rocket attacks between the last operation and the current one is in the rockets that landed in Israel. There is photographic evidence which is also widely available so what exactly passes your criteria for reliability? A great number of people do not understand how Wikipedia operates and take its articles as absolute fact and therefore as an organization Wikipedia should strive to provide all relevant information in as unbiased a manner as possible. As written, the article seems to indicate that Hamas and other Gazan militants never launched rockets into Israel until Israel's West Bank operation which is simply untrue. If we are not going to accept any information presented by the Israeli government who exactly is supposed to give their version of events? There are a great deal of entities which are hostile to Israel and will always paint a biased narrative and those sources are far less reliable but nonetheless accepted. Moreover, what end would it serve for Israel to lie about these attacks ? No operations were conducted in Gaza until rocket fire reached a certain level but this information was on a variety of websites between June of 2013 and 2014. Who are these "authoritative" observers? If they are not living in Israel, nor Gaza their authority is circumspect. Even more questionable is the fact that even the most anti-Israeli newspapers did not report events in that order, as they were happening, so I am not sure where this information is being drawn from other than Hamas mouthpieces. I am also disturbed by how greatly the article relies on the Guardian newspaper as a source. This publication has a noted anti-Israel, even vehemently anti-Israel slant and is known for publishing nonsense for example that Robin Williams was gay etc. Using the Guardian repeatedly is akin to using Iranian or Syrian state press as a reliable resource and it is shameful. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Alistriwen (talk • contribs) 19:56, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

In the background section, allegations that both the parties violated the ceasefire are clearly mentioned. There is no reason why government sources are in any way more "reliable" than independent sources or the Iranian or Syrian state press. Nishidani has explained why it s not a good idea to use primary sources. --Stannic tetramuon ・Snμ₄ 12:14, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

POV Tag Needed for Article Lead

The article lead (specifically, following paragraph) is extremely POV, and also qualifies as WP:Synth and parts of it qualify as WP: OR

"The fighting followed a series of events,[38] which included the continued blockade of the Gaza Strip by the Egyptian and Israeli governments (the latter in violation of the November 2012 ceasefire),[32][39] the continued incarceration without trial of prisoners in Israeli jails,[39][40][41] continued land, sea and air attacks by Israel on Gaza,[32][42][43] continued rocket attacks from Gaza, the formation of a unity government by Fatah and Hamas, the subsequent collapse of American-sponsored peace talks, the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teenagers (for which Israel blamed Hamas),[44] the subsequent kidnapping and murder of a Palestinian teenager, and the arrest by Israel of nearly all of Hamas's West Bank leaders.[32][38][39][45]"

Arguments:

1. The list is a random synthesis by users of events that preceeded the conflict. The definition of WP Synth. Who can argue that I would be wrong to say that the conflict was preceeded by the continued Hamas construction of terror tunnels? Or by the continued Hamas support of violence to achieve its goals (or refusal to renounce violence)? Or the continued refusal of Hamas to recognize previous agreements between Palestine and Israel? I could provide dozens of sources for these, and they are all true, and they directly preceeded the conflict and they are relevant (or as relevant as many of the events listed above)
2. The order in which these these 'events' are listed is random (i.e. not chronological) and POV. i.e. why isn't "continued Hamas rocket attacks on Israel" the first 'event' in this list, before continued blockade etc? Because of the POV of the author, that's why. Either we find an RS that lists the reasons in a specific (i.e. chronological) order, and we stick to that, or this paragaph must be flagged as POV.
3. It is not clear that any of these reasons are related to this conflict, i.e the killing of a Palestinian teenager. Yes, it happened and it preceeded the conflict, but I doubt we can find an RS that relates it to this event. Right now this is WP OR
4. WP OR: "the continued Israeli blockade...[is] in violation of the November 2012 cease fire". Unless a source specifically says this, it is WP:OR to claim this as fact. I read the economist source, it states there should be a gradual lift of the blockade. It is 100% OR for a wikipedia user to decide how quickly the blockage ought to be lifted for Israel to meet this part of the agreement.
5. WP: OR and POV "continued land, sea and air attacks by Israel on Gaza".

• a) POV - That the attacks were 'on Gaza'. Israel probably has a different interpretation of their target (i.e. the attacks according to them would be on targets).
• b) POV and OR - that the attacks were 'continued'. I read through the source, the strikes described occured immediately preceeding Israel's start of the operation, following the kidnapping of three Israeli teens. The source uses the word "continue" as in continue from yesterday/recent reporting. This is deliberate misuse of a source for POV.

I realize we are not going to fix these issues quickly or anytime soon. So a POV tag is needed in the lead until we can reach some consensus.

Kinetochore (talk) 03:04, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

I totally agree the lead seems to like one big WP:OR and WP:POVPUSH.--Shrike (talk)/WP:RX 07:19, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

Someone has to change this obvious POV pushing in the lead, WP:POVPUSH is exactly what it is.--Tritomex (talk) 11:57, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

I have removed a big chunk of the lead based on the reasoning here. It seems to cover what Kinetochore had in mind. The parts removed are all discussed in the background section in detail. Kingsindian (talk) 12:26, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

Another problem is that the lead is not in accordance with the title of the article. The article is titled 2014 Israel–Gaza conflict while the lead is about "Operation Protective Edge." it starts with "On 8 July 2014, an escalation of the Gaza–Israel conflict began when Israel launched Operation Protective Edge" and then we have "The stated aim was to stop rocket attacks from the Gaza Strip...". More over, I think the first part of the lead is POV. Mhhossein (talk) 13:24, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

@Mhhossein: The article is indeed about "Operation Protective Edge". The current name is the result of a confusion. Some people did not like the IDF name so it was proposed to be moved to a neutral name. However, the new name was overly broad, but without consensus, an uninvolved admin mistakenly moved the page. Afterwards, another admin put a moratorium on moves for the next three months to stop disruption. After the 3-month period, it will probably be moved to some neutral name, covering the conflict (this is of course only my opinion) -- like Gaza War (2008-09). Kingsindian (talk) 14:12, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

I fully support Mhhossein's view. This is a synopsis of the 2014 Conflict, and the claim that it is "in fact" an article about Operation Protective Edge has reached the stage of becoming obstructive [see also Talk: [[2014_Israel–Gaza_conflict#Lead_and_background]. If so many people are determined that this is "in fact" a misnamed article as Kingsindian suggests, then for heaven's sake change it back, and I will initiate an article entitled "2014 Israeli-Gaza Conflict", because what I am NOT going to be party to at any stage is a Wikipedia that just has "Operation Protective Edge" in splendid 2014 isolation as though it were something that dropped from the sky with no history, no lead-up and not affected by any preceding 2014 events, other than the kidnapping and killing of the three Israeli teenagers. Let us get that one clear - 2 articles - and then get "Admin"'s involvement and fix this mess. If someone knows how to do that, be my guest.Erictheenquirer (talk) 15:15, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

@Erictheenquirer and Mhhossein: I have left a message on the move closer's talk page about the title name. Kingsindian (talk) 15:36, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

@Kingsindian:I accept your explanation of the issues and appreciate your contact with User:Timrollpickering. As such, my further editing of this article is largely a waste of time given the changes that will be brought about by the move reversal, and the inevitable maintenance that will be required in order to 'sanitise' the resultant "Operation Protective Edge" article. During that process and/or once that task has been completed, I will edit where I see necessary.

In the meantime I will prepare a full draft for a 2014 timeline on the topic "2014 Israeli-Gaza conflict - cause and effect", which will provide detail which should match (a synopsis of it) in the "Background" section of the "Operation Protective Edge" article (if it has one - the absence of which would be questionable?), and which will contain a summary (albeit a critical one) of "Operation Protective Edge". As I mentioned I object to leaving Wiki with a sprinkling of articles related to 2014 and its conflict, but nothing to provide an overview or the glue to paste together a logical timeline and cause-and-effect chain. I sincerely hope that you will contribute to the new article and help to make it a robust and fair contribution. Many thanks in the meantime. Erictheenquirer (talk) 16:53, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

I don't agree that a move is appropriate. I don't think that this should be "Operation Protective Edge". As I have stated in another topic on this talk page, I believe it's a war, but there aren't enough RS that say so. As it relates, neither do many RS call this conflict "Operation Protective Edge". Also, it's problematic to explain what triggered this war to begin with: I've seen sources that have said that Israel is unhappy that Hamas and Fatah getting back together in unity was the real reason, but I don't know if those are RS, either. As far as it goes, I don't think that the general press knows, and Israel is unlikely to give a truthful reason, for their own national security/propaganda reasons (and which is totally reasonable when you're at war). So really, we'd have to say that we don't know why Israel decided to invade, and the press has speculated based on (un)reliable information from Israel and other sources. All we know is that there are some events that happened in advance of the invasion, and they may or may not be related. Hires an editor (talk) 17:17, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

@Hires an editor: I did not say I favour the move to "Operation Protective Edge". I said I favoured a move to a neutral name which clearly defines the scope of the article, which is the events starting July 2014. Right now there is confusion about the scope. The topics which you mention are all present in the "Background" section. About the issue of the unity govt. there are multiple WP:RS which make the argument. They are cited there. Kingsindian (talk) 18:02, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

@Erictheenquirer: I believe that there's no clear boundary line between these two issues. You'll have a hard job then! However I think one of the title or the context must change. The title is easier to change. Mhhossein (talk) 19:33, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

@Mhhossein:I submit that the boundary is quite clear between "2014 Israel-Gaza Conflict" and "Operation Protective Edge". As User:Hires an editor, who does not favour that the resultant article should be named "Operation Protective Edge", noted above, this article should be restricted to July 2014 onwards. That is pretty much in line with what User:KingsIndian and others have said, except they are specific that it be about OPE. The resultant article will/should have a Background, but that is by nature of a summary nature. So, that being the case, where does the detail of the pre-7 July 2014 events get presented, and where can they be strung together to provide a timeline to give a continuum of the chain-of-events involved in the tension build-up. I see this as the solution to User:Hires an editor's dilemma of there not being one single cause for the Gaza invasion, and the reason is that we have a "straw breaking the camel's bacl" situation of a cumulative build-up which reached breaking point. Should this build-up not be detailed, then I am afraid that we are all going to be guilty of cherry-picking at best, or ignoring historical reality. I don't intend to be a party to that. I still intend to provide a 2014 Timeline is the revamped artical's detail starts on 7 July. Erictheenquirer (talk) 11:17, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

@Hires an editor:The real problem, I reckon, is not to find the main cause of war, although there might be no single cause and although some RSs such as this one have mentioned Hamas-Fatah reconciliation as a reason. The problem is that the title is not in accordance with the article (at least the lead) or one might say, the lead is not in accordance with the title. Mhhossein (talk) 19:59, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

@Mhhossein:Apologies for ascribing a viewpoint to User:Hires an editor when it was your thought, Mhhossein. I agree there is not single cause for the outbreak of the conflict; they were multiple. But does that mean that they should not be specifically aired on Wiki as such. If they are only to be represented in a Background section to an article that focuses on Operation Protective Edge (OPE), then any prior cause of tension that cannot be firmly linked to OPE disappears from the historical narrative, and those that remain are to do so only in a summarised form. I really object, and from your post, so do you, to a single event being pointed out as being the start of a conflict - a classic example would be the barrage of rocket attacks from Gaza in early July - without asking the question as to WHY that sudden departure from the pattern of the previous 19 month occurred. It is my mission to document the entire panorama of tension development in 2014 and not to cherry-pick personal or majority favourites in establishing the Wiki narrative. Erictheenquirer (talk) 13:25, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

@Erictheenquirer: I tried to look at the issue of having another article from your point of view. But some questions stroke my mind. I believe that the causes of the conflict must be presented in detail, but in its suitable place. Also, I believe that some parts of the background would better be moved to another broader article. But somehow direct factors such as 2nd reconciliation between Fatah-Hamas should stay as a cause for OPE. Mhhossein (talk) 19:21, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

@Mhhossein:We appear to be slowly progressing towards agreement. We agree that the causes of the major conflict need detailing, but what is a 'suitable place'? That is indeed the question that stubbornly remains unanswered. We have some of that in the Beitunia killings and in the 2014 kidnapping and murder of Israeli teenagers. There may well be more lurking under the carpet. But where is Second Palestinian Unity Government; where is 2014 in the Blockade of the Gaza Strip; why is Operation Brother's Keeper hidden under a title 2014 kidnapping and murder of Israeli teenagers? Where is an overview of attacks, deaths and injuries up until end-June 2014? If all of these can be incorporated into one article, namely Operation Protective Edge, then I won't quibble about the excessively specific name, and I will be willing to go along with it. But the moment there is a 'revert' because one of the posted sub-topics is not directly related to OPE, then I will immediately start a separate article with topic the Conflicts and tensions in 2014. I doubt whether this will prove to be practical in the long run, but am willing to give it a try.

So, with that in mind, where do we fit the following in decent detail into the OPE article?

(numbering for convenience)

1. Violations of the 2012 ceasefire during 2014
2. Continuation of the Gaza Embargo by Israel
3. Development of the Palestinian unitary government plus third party reactions
4. The three cases of murders of Teenagers, both Israeli and Palestinian
5. Operation Brothers Keeper and the duping of the world about their early deaths
6. The increases tension regarding Israeli prisoners, including the nature of 'Administrative Detentions'.
7. The First-strike in Gaza
8. The subsequent barrage of rockets from Gaza
9. Media reaction

If the answer is that their detail does not belong in the revamped/transferred OPE article, then where does the chain-of-events belong?

Erictheenquirer (talk) 14:18, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

@Erictheenquirer: Almost all the points you list are already present in the background section, including 1, 2, 3, 4(does not include the Beitunia killings), 5, 7, 8. They are included because WP:RS have connected them with the conflict OPE flowing in a logical manner. Finding WP:RS to connect the others should not be hard, if you wish to do it. Kingsindian (talk) 15:04, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

@Kingsindian:Excellent!! It seems that we are going the route of one article only with the proviso that all tension-building issues, lesser clashes and events, even if only political, will be present in detail. I will ensure that this is done. With that in place, all my reservations are answered. I note for one final time that no reverts will be allowed that have as their basis that there is no documented link to OPE; a contribution to the Israeli Palestinian tension will be accepted as being fully sufficient.Erictheenquirer (talk) 15:59, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

@Erictheenquirer: To clarify, I did not say that all the points you made should be present in the background section. I said that if you wish to include them in this article, you should find WP:RS connecting them to OPE, not the conflict in general. How much space and weight they should be given, can be discussed. Kingsindian (talk) 16:08, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

@Kingsindian:In which case we are back at square one and I cannot be a party to the "one article for the entirity of the 2014 Israel Palestine tensions and that article is titled Operation Protective Edge" brigade. I thought as much. As soon as the name has changed back to Operation Protective Edge, I will be creating a new article. To repeat my position, there is far more to the 2014 conflicts and tensions between Israel and Palestine that just those which, as you put it, can be connected with WP:RS to the OPE. I welcome your acknowledgement that there are other sources of influence to "the conflict in general" that are not specific to OPE. I want to add those onto Wiki's repertoire of articles so as to make it complete, and I will be posting about ALL of the contributions to conflict, not just cherry-picking those which can be WP:RS'ed to OPE. I am sure that you will agree that such cherry picking with a claim that one article can represent all of the panorama of 2014 has been shown to be impossible. Furthermore a 'timeline structure' will go a long way to providing the verifiable historical facts of the 2014 chain-of-events. Cordially, Erictheenquirer (talk) 19:28, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

@Erictheenquirer, Mhhossein, Hires an editor, Shrike, Kinetochore, and Tritomex: I have opened a move review for the page title here. Kingsindian (talk) 13:36, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

Given the change of intentions for this article - being specific to Operation Protective Edge (with an appropriate title change) - I will alter the Background so as to extend through to end-June 2014. Erictheenquirer (talk) 07:30, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Lead and background

The article is about the "Operation Protective Edge" (or whatever you prefer to call it, if you dislike the IDF name). Acting boldly, I have removed a big chunk of the lead, because it is hugely awkward, and properly refers to the background. Every one of the events in this chunk is mentioned in the background section. And the treatment of those things are much better in that section, instead of a litany of incidents in the lead with no logic for inclusion/exclusion. Already multiple battles are being fought on the this part of the lead including here, here, here, here and here. Kingsindian (talk) 07:52, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

Under the circumstances of there being recurring, ongoing disagreement about what to include in the 'background' part in the lead (as recently as right now), and the lead being really long, your bold move of the information to the article body (which I polished up in these edits) was probably for the best. -sche (talk) 01:06, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

@Kingsindian:After our positive interchanges, I am somewhat disappointed that you continue to refer to this article as being about "Operation Protective Edge". The title shows that it clearly is not = "2014 Israel–Gaza conflict". We need to achieve closure on this issue because it is leading to grossly inefficient editing by all concerned and a waste of individual time.

I have previously suggested that, if you want to preserve an article named "Operation Protective Edge" then I would fully support that. But then we must DO that, and move the bloated detail about "OPE" to its own page, replacing it with a synopsis in the 2014 overview. In a day or two I will propose a draft Background section that does not violate the subject matter of the current article.

@Erictheenquirer: As you can see on the top of the talk page (and I have also mentioned this in our earlier conversations), there is a 3-month moratorium on moves on this page, therefore, it has to stay with an unsatisfactory title. I did not move the article, but we are stuck with the title name, unless someone puts in a move review request. However even a casual glance at the article shows that 95% (if not higher) of the article is about "Operation Protective Edge". Everyone in this article has been editing as if this deals with "Operation Protective Edge", not the whole of 2014. Most of the issues were with the lead section, which I have trimmed massively. Right now, I do not see much confusion. Kingsindian (talk) 15:07, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

@Kingsindian:I accept that. Please see my conclusions at Talk: POV Tag Needed for Article Lead above, where I will continue the discussion.

@Somedifferentstuff: Could you elaborate on why you went back to the previous version? Kingsindian (talk) 00:20, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Putting a future time stamp to prevent archival. 00:20, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

September attack

I am a little unhappy with a modification (to something I wrote!!!) but I'm not going to change anything myself. A previous version included the widely repeated report that the tunnels were intended for a massive Rosh Hashanah attack. Since the sources were unnamed (or citation needed) I added for balance the report (from an unnamed source but on Israel army radio) that all targets were military. That second bit of information stayed in without the first. In a way that unbalances things in the other direction. I don't think we know what the intention was nor how easily it might have changed depending on conditions. But with a sensational claim (September attack!) which readers might come to look for, it is worth saying "not well substantiated."

Of possibly greater concern is that the spun off section Timeline_of_the_2014_Israel–Gaza_conflict includes the September attack claim but not the second claim. Gentlemath (talk) 09:58, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

LATER I moved the "only military" claim to keep it with the "Rosh Hashanah attack" claim. Both are from quality outlets and quote unnamed sources. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gentlemath (talk • contribs) 22:48, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

Publicising RfC

Not sure if it is appropriate to publicize RfCs here. But people might be interested in the the one here, an article which is linked/spun out from this page. Kingsindian (talk) 11:10, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

Journalism

http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/4422.htm

http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/4390.htm http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/4391.htm

Reality according to Hamas: Hamas fighters are civilians http://www.palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=157&doc_id=12298

Hamas claims to have executed over 30 collaborators with Israel Source: Palestine Press news agency‎, July 28, 2014 http://www.palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=1045 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.127.5.88 (talk) 01:41, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

Got any reliable sources? // Liftarn (talk)

Undue weight to propaganda - Maan News agency and Palestinian claims

This edit is all wrong: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=2014_Israel%E2%80%93Gaza_conflict&diff=621743183&oldid=621698099

What Ma'an calls, 'biscuit factory', we all know could be a rocket storage or worse. Ma'an has silly habits, like calling militants "resistance fighters" and repeating their text, or the text of the people they interview as facts devoid of prejudice is just as bad, if not worse, than posting an unverified image such as this one - http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk%3ANishidani&diff=620953788&oldid=620951733 77.127.5.88 (talk) 09:48, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

Added refeence to Telegraph article here. Kingsindian (talk) 09:58, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

Human shields

@Spud770: Regarding your edit here. As I explained in my edit summary, this is duplication and too categorical a statement. The "human shields" claim is heavily contested and therefore has a big section just below discussing all the claims. All the points made in your references, including the Hamas leader's statement are discussed there. All such claims must be attributed and discussed, as is done in the section (Israel, Hamas, UN, EU, etc.) As to activists, that is quite a separate matter. This section is about involuntary human shielding, say by Hamas and others, which is a violation of international humanitarian law. This is totally different from voluntary acts by international activists. Kingsindian (talk) 19:32, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

This section is not (only) about involuntary human shields; it is about Hamas encouraging civilians to act as human shields, essentially as voluntary shields. The sources all refer to both the citizens and the activists as voluntary "human shields." If there are other reliable sources contesting the existence of voluntary human shields let them be provided.

The existence of voluntary human shields is also important as it relates to civilian deaths. Spud770 (talk) 20:04, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

@Spud770: As I have said already, the claim about Hamas encouraging civilians is already present in the section. And, as I also said already, this is a contested claim and a categorical statement like "civilians acted as human shields" is not correct. As to the activists, you may have noticed the title of this section namely "Violations of international humanitarian law" (IHL). Voluntary acts by activists do not come under this, nor is any source provided which claims this violates IHL. Kingsindian (talk) 20:18, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

The sources all say that civilians acted as human shields. This has nothing to do with Hamas and it is not a contested claim. If you believe it is, please bring other sources. You are correct that volunteering as a human shield is not a violation of IHL. The sub-section is titled "Civilian deaths," even though civilian deaths are not necessarily a violation of IHL either. But the existence of human shields relates directly to civilian deaths is important to include in the article. Spud770 (talk) 21:09, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

@Spud770:

• The section on human shields discusses other sources. There are contestations about what counts as human shielding, and whether there was indeed human shielding. As regards to what counts as human shielding, there are issues regarding forcing or urging people to stay in their homes, or firing rockets from near civilian structures etc. These claims are all discussed in the section, all sourced. You can see this.
• As regards the civilian deaths, you are correct that the relation of human shields to civilian deaths should be presented. Therefore, there is a huge subsection about "human shields" within the "civilian deaths" section.Kingsindian (talk) 21:21, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

Still, the issue of voluntary human shields is quite clear from the sources and deserves mention. It should not be conflated with the issue of urged or forced human shields, which is indeed contested. Spud770 (talk) 21:54, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

@Spud770: You are not correct that the voluntary human shields has not been contested. For example, the first source quoted refers to the Kaware family, which was investigated by B'Tselem here, which states that it was not a voluntary human shield, but an inadvertent or careless use of an airstrike. This has already been discussed on the talk page (search for human shields in the talk page archives, there is a big discussion and RfC on this). The international activists are quite a separate case, as I mentioned, but as far as I know, none of them have been killed, so their relevance to civilian deaths is dubious. However, I agree on one point, that the heading "civilian deaths" is a bit awkward, because civilian deaths are not by themselves violations of IHL. There have been some other discussions about how to reorganize this section, see discussion here, which was inconclusive but suggestive. Kingsindian (talk) 22:17, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

B'tselem's account does not appear to contradict what is mentioned in the many NPOV news sources cited in my edit (and there are more) that people willingly used themselves as human shields. (I don't see where B'tselem refers to that event as an 'inadvertent or careless airstrike' either.)

If you wish to separate 'civilian' volunteers from 'activist' volunteers, I have no problem with that (though I question the necessity). Re. the previous discussions on the talk pages: as far as I see, they only dealt with involuntary human shields. The issue of voluntary human shields was never raised in the talk pages nor mentioned in the article, which is why I added it. Spud770 (talk) 22:48, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

@Spud770: B'Tselem's account is as follows: they got warning at 1:30 to evacuate, they evacuated. At 2:50, a missile was fired, hitting the solar water tank on the roof. People went up to investigate, then another missile hit at 3:00 while they were on the roof. The IDF claimed that it was too late to stop the second missile, (a claim B'Tselem rejected, but that is not relevant here). This is in no way an account of human shielding. The sources you quoted were all very close in time to the attack, when things were unclear and Israel was itself either not sure, or spinning this (take your pick based on your estimate of how nefarious they are). It is not fair to present this as uncontested fact, since this is obviously a loaded accusation. As to the voluntary human shielding by activists, that should be separated out clearly, since as far as I know, nobody has died. Kingsindian (talk) 23:18, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

I should add that there are many other issues with this supposed "human shielding". These are all discussed in an RfC on this. For example, homes are not considered military targets, a point the B'Tselem report also makes. So the claim of "human shielding" does not apply in many cases (including the Kaware case). These are all issues to be considered. Just because an ill-informed reporter calls it "human shielding" does not make it so. Reporters are not known to be international humanitarian law experts. Kingsindian (talk) 23:30, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

Human shielding has a very specific legal definition. I believe that the first sentence in the "human shields" section ("Civilians and activists in Gaza have used themselves as 'human shields' in attempts to prevent Israeli attacks") should be altered or rephrased in some way. The term must be used with caution(similar to words like "torture" and "genocide). The ICRC defines it as "using the presence (or movements) of civilians or other protected persons to render certain points or areas (or military forces) immune from military operations". Stress the word "using". The ICRC concludes that "the use of human shields requires an intentional co-location of military objectives and civilians or persons hors de combat with the specific intent of trying to prevent the targeting of those military objectives.". Civilians and activists putting themselves in harms way on their own accord is not human shielding unless their presence is being deliberately used by Hamas. It does not constitute a war crime if its not deliberate, and therefore can not be categorized as a form of human shielding.

If a group of civilians decide to voluntarily decide to stay near military as deterrents but Hamas has nothing to do with it then that cannot be defined as human shielding, and human rights organizations concur with me on this point.

Of course, if you disagree with my interpretation or you have separate reliable sources, such as judgements made by legal scholars, that groups of civilians voluntarily staying in combat zones constitutes "human shielding", feel free to bring it up. JDiala (talk) 02:15, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

@JDiala: You are correct in your assessment, in my view. However, I wonder if you have read the above discussion (quite long I know, not blaming you for tl;dr) in which I make the same points, and the reply by Spud770 was that "voluntary human shielding" (very bad term, in my view) should be included because of the section is called "civilian deaths". I do not accept this argument. Kingsindian (talk) 09:58, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

@Kingsindian: Yes, I agree with you. I thought I'd just bring some sources in. The term "voluntary" human shielding has no relevance as a legal term; it's more of an emotive propaganda thing to portray Hamas as something its not. In my view, the term human shielding has two very different interpretations. One is the legal and scholarly interpretation. The other is the journalistic interpretation thrown around on the internet and media, often accompanied by the defamation of Hamas. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, and it must abide by encyclopedic standards; therefore I believe the former interpretation is the one we should consistently abide by. That would mean the near-total removal of the term "human shield", "voluntary" or not, unless it's used in a secondary context (for example, "Israel claims Hamas is using human shields"), because the UN, human rights organizations and other reputable sources have failed to find conclusive evidence as of yet that Hamas has a policy of deliberately using human shields, which would, of course, be the legal definition and also constitute a war crime under IHR. JDiala (talk) 10:41, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Casualties from Rockets

Possible inaccuracy in the passage (Impact on Israeli residents) Despite Israel's use of the Iron Dome missile defense systems, 3 civilians were killed including a Jewish Israeli, an Arab Israeli and a Thai worker. - of these casualties the Thai migrant worker was killed by a mortar shell, the Jewish Israeli was also killed by a mortar shell and the Arab Israeli killed by a rocket. It is important to distinguish between these munitions because the Iron Dome cannot intercept short range mortars but has a much higher interception ration on longer range rockets towards larger population centers like Ashkelon. In the case of at least one of these casualties, the Bedouin Arab Israeli, their dwelling lay in a zone classified as an 'open area' and therefore not protected by the Iron Dome. In this sense the casualties were not killed 'despite the Iron Dome' but because they were in areas that the Iron Dome was not set up to protect. If there are no objections I will go ahead and make some minor accuracy alterations here and there and try and farm out some of the non-WP:RS that have snuck into the article (including the Daily Mail online article that was used for this passage. KingHiggins (talk) 01:38, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Move Review

[Created from suggestion in the lead "Requested Move" article] As indicated in Talk:"Requested Move" and in Talk:"POV Tag Needed for Article Lead" this article is being considered for a move to Gaza War (2014). I am not against such a move and title change. It is clearly a world-shattering event. However, the move and the suggested new title of "Gaza War (2014)" creates a topic that is not all-encompassing of the 2014 Israel-Palestine conflict.

But this brings with it a potentially grave problem. According to Talk discussions to date, the Gaza War (2014) article resulting from the move will be more specific than (and in fact a subset of) "2014 Israel-Gaza Conflict". This means that a number of 2014 events may no longer have a home without a "2014 Conflict" article, since the build-ups of tensions and the outbreaks of conflicts or continuing conflict issues that cannot be directly assigned as causes of the War with WP:RS, will disappear from Wiki content and not just from the article. It is obvious from past edit history that, even with the current 2014 Conflict title, any contribution that illustrates the build-up of 2014 Israel-Palestine tension but has not been directly related to Operation Protective Edge, is subject to removal. Examples are the 2014 continued Gaza blockade by Israel, the restrictions by Israel on Gaza fishing rights, the attacks by Israel on Gaza, the executions of Palestinian leaders, the continued settler violence, etc. With the change in title it is reasonable to expect that even more will be excised.

I therefore conclude that there are two options:

1. To create a second article on the cause-and-effect chain of conflict (preferably in a time sequence), which will contain the Gaza War (2014) in summary form (since it is a sub-set of the 2014 conflicts) and have a background that starts with the November 2012 Ceasefire Agreement and ends with 2013, or
2. To give Gaza War (2014) ample leeway to have detailed 'Background' and/or 'Precursor events and On-going Conflicts' sections which only have to demonstrate the build-up of tension, and not necessarily be sourced as a specific contribution to the War with WP:RS

Should a solution to a full description of the 2014 cause-and-effect chain of tensions along these lines not be implementable, then I would not support the move because it will distort the historical record, and to request that the current title be fully respected. Erictheenquirer (talk) 08:48, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

There may not be a "cause-and-effect" chain that led to this war, not that we can discern, anyway. I don't think "the historical record" would be distorted by properly focusing this article on the actual war itself, without the "c-a-e" thing. That's a bit of an over-generalization. Hires an editor (talk) 11:38, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

@Erictheenquirer: Perhaps your own envisaged contribution fits here. Kingsindian (talk) 12:34, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

@Kingsindian: Many thanks for pointing out the precedents for other years. Indeed my envisaged article can go there, but only its summary. As you can see, those previous years had a main article and I cannot think of a better one that "2014 Israel-Gaza Conflicts". Thanks you for pointing this out. Erictheenquirer (talk) 16:20, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

@Hires an editor:I regret that I couldn't disagree more with your implication that wars start out of the blue. That YOU cannot discern a chain-of-events leading to them is interesting but inconclusive, and should not prevent any other editor from offering detail to the contrary. That you don't "think" that the record would be distorted by focussing just on the war and not also providing the precursor events is obviously a POV. I "think" otherwise but I am furthermore prepared (and fully intend to) to substantiate my "think" by providing full detail in support of my view and to see data offered to the contrary. Selective memory or cherry-picking are not one of my favourite routes to a full historical appreciation - and I hope that I am correct in presuming that that is the objective of such a Wiki article, and not a one-sided surgical excision of anything that does not promote a favoured result.Erictheenquirer (talk) 08:24, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

@Erictheenquirer: I would ask that if you disagree, you be careful to be civil about it. I certainly don't appreciate that you're accusing me of being clueless ("YOU cannot discern"), nor that I'm pushing a POV here, when really, I'd like to limit the scope of the article, and so far the events leading up to the war are in dispute, and undecided upon. Too many different sources say too many different things regarding why Israel decided to invade at the time that it did. Correlation does not imply causation - this is why I say it's difficult to know. I realize that for other wars it's easy to figure things out, but this particular war it's not the case. I also object to the way you seem to discredit "thinking" with scare quotes. Your sarcasm and arrogance are insulting, and no one needs that. I don't have an opinion about this except that it accurately reflect reality, and this topic finds itself very clouded as it relates to reality, since the various sides/factions/actors/commentators/observers feel so strongly about it, and have different and opposing agendas. Hires an editor (talk) 23:10, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

@Hires an editor:Admonishments accepted.

Back to process and content. I agree that the facts as to the origin of OPE are cloudy. I also agree that there are many issues and events which may have led to an escalation of tensions and conflict but which cannot be attributed WP:RS to be direct causes of OPE without challenge. But that editorial dilemma is nothing new to Wiki. Some comparable Wiki articles contain such chains-of-events (without direct causative links to the main offensive) within the text of the main article - examples: the Tet Offensive; Operation Desert Storm; United States invasion of Panama; Operation Cast Lead; Yom Kippur War. Others have separate articles concerning the lead-up to major conflicts such as Origins of the Six-Day War; Lead-up to the Iraq War; Events leading to the Falklands War; Events leading to the attack on Pearl Harbor. Precursor 'events and issues' are therefore a well-established Wiki precedent, demonstrating that the choice between the options (within or separate) is a question of preference and not of Wiki-validity.

Additionally: Inconsistency 1 - The fact is that the title of the article still is "2014 Israel-Gaza conflict", and that is far more ample that just the bare operation itself. Yet many of my contributions under the actual title have been reverted because they are not specific to OPE, even though they were specific to '2014 Conflict". Hence my frustration and snapping. This anomaly in the form of an existing title that does not reflect what some 'reverting' editors consider the piece should be titled (but is not) is, to say the least, disruptive as we have seen.

Inconsistency 2 - There are certain precursor events which ARE currently in the "2014 Conflicts" article, even though there are also disputes regarding the directness of their contribution. A classic case is the allowance in text of one out of three sets of Teenager killings during the precursor period, with the other two being absent. In strictly rejecting events whose contribution to OPE are not unanimous could mean that there can be only one precursor event to OPE, namely the dramatic increase in rocket fire from Gaza on 7 July. In ruling out earlier events whose direct link to OPE are disputed, we would therefore be obliged to leave out the IDF strike on Gaza of 6 July because it cannot be directly related to OPE, but only to the increase in rocket attacks earlier on the day of OPE initiation. Given this dilemma and the Wiki precedents previously noted, my conclusion was that 2 articles would be warranted: One would keep OPE confined and detailed with specifics, as you suggested, and the other could be "Lead-up to the Gaza War (2014)" or "Origins of Operation Protective Edge", or "2014 Israel-Gaza tension escalation" or .. etc. I am personally amenable to either option, although I have a preference for an (eventual) Operation Protective Edge that is not too bloated.

Attacks on journalists

Can we please keep some perspective on this section? Nobody claims that there was no intimidation whatsoever by Hamas. But please, think a bit about what you're doing. The killing of 8 journalists gets one line in this section, while the intimidation of journalists goes on and on and on and on and on, taking up a full page. Please have some perspective. In my view the intimidation part needs to be drastically condensed, with pro- and con- presented, to one paragraph, not more than half the total section at most. I have discussed this at length on this page before, but people keep insisting on adding more and more stuff. Kingsindian (talk) 14:44, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

That can be objectively dealt with also by creating a subpage for attacks on journalists, not by selectively removing some of many attacks, (which allegedly included even physical torture) on journalist during this war. Also there are similar problems with other sections. Third, if 8 journalist were killed, this needs to be written in the article too (as it is not), expanded, with reliable sources (which is missing). Currently there is just one source, the Maan agency, documenting the death of 3 journalists of Hamas Al Aqsa TV. The 3 foreign journalist who died while Hamas operatives tried to defuse the unexploded Israeli bomb, did not die as a result of attacks on journalist, so this does not belong to this section.--Tritomex (talk) 15:10, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Hamas Al Aqsa TV is designated by USA as a "terrorist entity" According to US Al Aqsa TV is part of "terrorist infrastructure" and "USA will not distinguish between a business financed and controlled by a terrorist group, such as Al-Aqsa Television, and the terrorist group itself, .[3] I do not want to take side on this question, but the article must come clear, that there is not a universal understanding that the 3 Al Aqsa TV operatives were just journalists.Tritomex (talk) 15:30, 19 August 2014 (UTC) Similar labels for Al Aqsa TV, were given by the government of France.[4]

@Tritomex: Of course a section can be made more balanced by a) expanding some things or b) condensing some other things. If you feel that there should be a separate article on "Attacks on journalists", go ahead and create it. Right now, I see this section as taking more space than "rocket attacks on civilians", "destruction of homes" and "infrastructure" sections combined. This is wildly WP:UNDUE. In my opinion, condensing this section is correct option. Kingsindian (talk) 16:27, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

@Tritomex:So what's that got to do with the price of fish? Al-Aqsa tv is a propaganda channel for Hamas, just as Arutz Sheva is for settlers, or the New York Times for middle class morons who want to feel comfortable about bad things their government does. It is absolutely pointless trying to use sources to make some idiotic statement like the one you propose. What the US might think of al-Aqsa TV is immaterial and undue. It does not recruit, train and engage in terrorist acts.Who gives a fuck what that government happens to say it thinks (it doesn't) of an hardly notable Arab tv channel?, itself a state that defies international law, consistently subverts other states, has launched 201 overseas military operations between the end of World War II and 2001, of the 248 conflicts since that date, has been formally condemned for its violation of Nicaraguan sovereignty and has [Legality of the Iraq War|invaded a foreign state without any other pretext than a series of suspicions, known to have been fabricated]. Even its defenders treat the argument that its behaviour fits its own definition of a rogue state seriously. Not for that do we rush round plastering 'rogue state' refs for every article on the US. As A.B. Yehoshua says, calling Hamas a 'terrorist organization' is pointless. Such attribution of absurdly subjective external 'state' opinions serve only to insinuate trivial nonsense.

If you want to fuss up a full length article, go ahead, and take care to mention both sides. I.e., numerous attacks on journalists and artists protesting the war in Israel. Israel was condemned by Human Rights Watch for unprovoked attacks on Palestinian journalists during the 2012 war. Just as Reporters without Borders has complained of attacks on journalists within Gaza this time round, as they complain of Israel's firing at journalists covering the West Bank. Sayed Kashua has people threatening to break his legs or kidnap his children for what he has written recently on the war, so he has broken with the state in whose language he writes so eloquently, and has felt he must expatriate and learn to write in English. Gideon Levy of Haaretz is under 24/7 armed escort because of numerous death threats from Israeli groups for the way he covered the war: his death has already been forecast by an Israeli activist attorney on Facebook. There are dozens of examples, if you really want to push this.Nishidani (talk) 17:22, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Please stop soapboxing Wikipedia is not a WP:FORUM for your views.--Shrike (talk)/WP:RX 18:40, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Nishidani, of course is right about the issues, and gives a lot of sources to include in any separate article. However, I want to keep the current section focused on condensing the section in the current article, which is grotesquely bloated. If everyone agrees on that, I will replace the section with a condensed summary, hopefully in a day or so. Kingsindian (talk) 18:56, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Shrike, read WP:NPOV and try to edit accordingly. My views sum the sources given and they were provided to intimate to Tritomex that, as Kingsindian suggested, he's only digging a hole for himself if he pursues expansion, since there is a mass of evidence that could be, but that I for one won't add, on Israeli pressures on journalists, and that jumping at a few articles referring to Hamas and journalism to spin a government line while ignoring these would both violate WP:NPOV and WP:Undue. Lastly, it's often forgotten that this is a global encyclopedia, and that what the US or Canada or others spin is, to billions of people, boring or a sheer hypocritical pretext for the assertion of power interests. Many users have to be reminded of that, because they tend, in their edits, to confuse mainstream information with what a few outlets in interested western countries say. It is not to abuse WP:FORUM to remind editors to drop our provincialism, and read more widely. Meaning here, that Hamas is not considered a terrorist organization by a lot of countries: al-Qaeda expelled the future founders of ISIS because its leaders found them too 'terroristic', and in respect of those two vile organizations, Hamas is, in non-Western terms, quite 'liberal' (Christians live under its sway), as compared to a Western 'ally' like Saudi Arabia. I commend therefore attempts to sum this section up in a few balanced, well sourced lines, that cover complaints about Israel and Hamas equally.Nishidani (talk) 19:49, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

The New York Times or Arutz Sheva is not considered by USA and EU, as "terrorist entity" while Al Aqsa TV is considered as such, and the USA officially declared all Al Aqsa TV operatives as "terrorists" This can be seen from official US government sources mentioned above. I do not take sides on the question whether this Al Aqsa TV operatives are journalist or not, for huge part of world they are not considered as such, and this can not be just left out of the article. For the rest I can fully agree with Shrike, this is not the place to discuss unrelated issues. There are relevant articles and sections where such issues could be mentioned. If eventual Israeli attacks on journalist happened during this war, this must be also added to this section as per WP:NPOV if it is not done yet.--Tritomex (talk) 21:13, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

I have rewritten the section. I condensed it and removed one clearly undue bit about someone being threatened on twitter, and sorted the information into:

• one paragraph on journalists' deaths,
• one long paragraph on Israel's and others' views that journalists are subject to intimidation,
• one paragraph on views that journalists are not subject to intimidation,
• one paragraph containing a Hamas spokesperson's comment that it questions journalists, and
• one paragraph on Israeli attacks on media stations.

-sche (talk) 21:34, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Needs much more condensing, especially removal of individual names (French journalist, FT reporter, RT reporter). Can't go on enumerating all the cases like this. Are we going to list every reporter Haaretz spoke to, or every reporter that was killed? This is not a correct procedure. A general statement about this should be enough. Also the Hamas spokesperson has a very long quote, it should be summarized, saying that they did not like reporters reporting on military or intelligence matters and they interrogated/questioned/told them about it. If someone else wants to do this, they can, otherwise I will do it tomorrow, because of 1RR restriction. Kingsindian (talk) 22:22, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

No need to remove the names, especially not the reasons and circumstances of the attacks. This are very important issues. In my view this is now fully WP:NPOV and objective as all events and sides were given equal cc space. Additional changes would make it unbalanced and would require additional chamnges.--Tritomex (talk) 22:36, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

@Tritomex: Reasons for not removing the names? As I mentioned already, we can't enumerate all the cases like this. What issues are the names adding? They are all mentioned already (intimidation, threatening of journalists, etc.) Kingsindian (talk) 22:43, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

I do not see any reason why not to add specific attacks on journalists. This is the subject of this section. We already went to individual narratives (on less important issues) when we added "Jodi Rudoren, who wrote "every reporter I’ve met who was in Gaza during [the] war says this Israeli/now FPA narrative of Hamas harassment is nonsense.”[384] The Israeli newspaper Haaretz interviewed many foreign journalists and found "all but a few of the journalists deny any such pressure". They said Hamas' intimidation was no worse than they have gotten from the IDF, and said no armed forces would permit reporters to broadcast militarily sensitive information. Furthermore, most reporters seldom saw Hamas fighters, because they fought from concealed locations and in places that were too dangerous to approach." So selective removals are not justified.--Tritomex (talk) 22:52, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

I agree with you regarding sources, but due to 1RR i have to wait additional 10 hours to fix it.[5][6] --Tritomex (talk) 23:14, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

I do not have the text of the piece which quotes Rudoren since it is behind a paywall, but I would be happy to include instead, a generic statement saying that many people disagree with the FPA assessment. I do not know why the Haaretz report is called "individual narrative". Having a section "Attack on Journalists" does not mean one has to enumerate all the attacks on journalists. Obviously we are not listing all the people Haaretz talked to, or all the Palestinian journalists who are killed, or their circumstances. I have put a draft of the section here. It addresses all the issues raised above but is condensed. Anyone can comment or put it up, or I can put it up tomorrow. Kingsindian (talk) 00:02, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

The Rudhoren quote without attribution would look even worse than it looks now. Factual and documented attacks on journalists are much more important for this section, than one newspaper point view based on interview with some unnamed journalist. However, my suggestion was to leave this section as it is. --Tritomex (talk) 00:19, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

@Tritomex: I have removed the Rudoren quote entirely in my draft. As to your second point, you have got it entirely backwards. The quality of the Haaretz evidence is much higher than the individual cases. If you want to know the scale of intimidation etc. of a population of 700 journalists (being threatened etc.), there are two ways of doing it. One is the Haaretz way, talking to a sample of journalists and asking them what their experience was. All of them reported little or no intimidation. The second way is to look at a self-selected sample of journalists who reported intimidation. Neither is a scientifically precise method, but the first is much better methodologically. It is fine to include the concerns raised by the 2nd group, but it is not legitimate to enumerate all of them. Kingsindian (talk) 09:02, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Your draft is not in line with WP:NPOV , and such huge rewriting of entire section needs consensus per Wikipedia rules.

International humanitarian law is not subject of this section. Palestinian media news, is not reliable source regarding the number of journalists killed, especially regarding AL Aqsa TV operatives. Specific attacks on journalist can not be censored. (btw attacks on journalists were not self-selected). The fact that foreign media association condemned some of this attack, does not mean that they shouldn't be mentioned in this section specifically dedicated to this topic, in the same way as other condemnation of attacks by international bodies, does not mean that those attacks shouldn't be mentioned. The death of 3 Italian journalists is unrelated to this section. They did not die as a result of attacks on journalists. The compromise done by -sche has my support.--Tritomex (talk) 09:31, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

@Tritomex: The search for consensus is precisely the reason I made a draft and did not edit in the main space. I hardly rewrote the entire section. I only expanded slightly the first paragraph and condensed the last. The killing of the Italian journalist is already present in the current version. If someone wants to make an argument as to why it should be removed, I am open to it. I have removed the "Palestinian News" source because it is not needed. If he wishes, -sche can state his opinion about whether the draft I made is better than the current version. I will wait for 24 hours for people to incorporate anything from my draft which they see fit. If, at that time, I still consider the section unsatisfactory, I will open an RfC. Kingsindian (talk) 10:55, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

I notice your draft combines "Israel has bombed Hamas' Al-Aqsa radio and TV stations" and "Israel has made foreign journalists sign a waiver" into one paragraph. I'm not sure what the logic of combining those subjects is; I think grouping "Israel has made foreign journalists sign a waiver" and "[People say] Hamas intimidates journalists in Gaza", as the article currently does (due to me) makes more sense. I am fine with moving the "Israel has bombed..." paragraph to be above the "Israel has made foreign..." paragraph (indeed, that makes sense, since it puts it next to the other paragraph on journalists being killed), but I think they should be separate paragraphs. (Perhaps "Israel has made foreign..." and "[People say] Hamas intimidates..." should also be separate paragraphs.) I think you did a good job summarizing/condensing the Hamas spokesperson's comments. I'm not sure wholesale removal of the comments by specific journalists is desirable, though I agree that they need to be shortened. There's probably a middle ground between removing them entirely and retaining them intact; I'll take a stab at it in a moment. Have other members of the FPA besides Rudoren (and the unnamed reporters she says she talked to) criticized the FPA's stance? If so, I could see saying "Members of the FPA are divided over the statement regarding Hamas harassment, with one saying the 'narrative of Hamas harassment is nonsense'." But if not, then (a) it's not accurate to generalize to "members" plural, and (b) it makes sense to retain Rudoren's name. Your changes to the first paragraph were extensive and I'll give feedback on them in a separate comment. -sche (talk) 22:11, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Actually, I'm having a harder time than I thought I would figuring out how to shorten the comments by specific journalists. I notice that of the three citations which had been given for those comments, one didn't actually contain relevant information, and the other two have been flagged as having POV problems. -sche (talk) 22:30, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

@-sche: Thanks for the comments.

• There is no real logic in the way I combined the waivers. I just wanted to keep all the criticism against one side together. I had initially put the sentence in a paragraph by itself, but it seemed too awkward. It belongs in a paragraph by itself, I think. It is not directly related to intimidation.
• Regarding the FPA statement, I just used the title of Haaretz's report: "Foreign press divided over...". The article is behind a paywall and I do not know what details it gives. But the title is indicative of the disagreement with the FPA statement. The quote by Rudoren also emphasises that she has talked to other journalists. We can assume that she is not lying about this.
• I will add, though this is not relevant to your points, that the inclusion of this particular FPA statement in this section is disturbingly selective. Just take a look at the list of FPA statements in 2014 here. Every statement except this one is criticizing Israel...yet it is the only one included. There is a specific statement on July 23, probably referring to this Avigdor Lieberman criticized Al-Jazeera, and next day, their offices were hit. The statement refers specifically to "incitement" though it does not name the party, all the examples given deal with Israel.
• Regarding the individual journalists. Firstly, my reasoning was that it would simply be WP:UNDUE to talk about individual cases like this, instead of the issues. If we list all the cases of harassment by Hamas, we have to give perhaps 10 times (at least) the space to list all the cases of killings by the other side, given the severity and the number of violations. Secondly, all the issues raised by the individual journalists, namely intimidation, deportation and interrogation, they are all presented. Adding in the individual cases adds nothing at all to the section, except bloat and WP:UNDUE. Kingsindian (talk) 23:26, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Gaza Health ministry?

The phrase we use in this article is highly problematic and misleading. Gaza is not an independent state and does not have its own health ministry. Its eighter Palestinian health ministry if it represents the Palestinian Authority/Sate of Palestine or Hamas health ministry, eventually Hamas affiliated health ministry if it represents Hamas. The current description is misleading as no one understands whom Gaza Health ministry represents.--Tritomex (talk) 17:01, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

That objection's already been discussed and dismissed.Nishidani (talk) 17:23, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

@Tritomex: Here is the discussion. The consensus was to call it "Gaza Health Ministry". Kingsindian (talk) 17:26, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for the link, however I think official institutions, have to be named properly according to WP rules. If this institution represent PA/State of Palestine, as it seems to be the case, it has to be named as Palestinian ministry of health.--Tritomex (talk) 21:42, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Photos

B'Tselem has a photo blog containing lots of photos about the conflict, all free to use under CC license. Someone can upload to commons and take from there. I have already added one from Beit Hanoun. It contains some photos of rocket attacks on Israel as well. Someone was talking about not enough photos from Israel in the casualties section. Here is an option. Kingsindian (talk) 18:22, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Shelters or air-raid shelters?

@Monopoly31121993: Regarding your edit, I don't believe the UN schools serve as air-raid shelters, which, as the page indicates, is something completely different. They are just shelters in the sense of "people have taken shelter there". Kingsindian (talk) 19:41, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

if the word is being used as a noun in that sentence and not a verb then it means air raid shelter.Monopoly31121993 (talk) 22:31, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

@Monopoly31121993: That is a very strange inference. How did you reach it? Air-raid shelters, as the page describes, are shelters designed to withstand, at least somewhat, attacks from the air. There is no sense in which the UN schools meet this definition. Nor is there any source which uses the term "air-raid shelter" as far as I have seen. Kingsindian (talk) 23:05, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Subtle anti-Arab racism

"Critics also point to structural biases in the UN; Arab and Muslim countries number over 50, ensuring a broad coalition criticizing Israel"

Very prejudicial statement. I'd suggest rewording it to sound less racist. This assumes that some countries have some sort of inherent bias or disingenuousness in their treatment of Israel on the international stage only because demographically they happen to have Arab or Muslim majorities. JDiala (talk) 07:40, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Agreed. But that is not all. The subsection Talk:"Allegations of UN Bias" is the worst case of bias that I have seen during my (admittedly brief) period as a Wiki contributor. It contains text without references; text written in the passive voice; vague allocations such as "critics" when "Israeli commentators" is a far more specific label; it misquotes references; and when only lesser portions of a reference support the article's bias, the alternative view is not mentioned. Just a few examples are:

1. Quote: “The UN agency UNRWA has faced a number of criticisms during the conflict.” The supplied citation in fact focusses on the anguish of a UNRWA official at the situation in which “the rights of Palestinians – even their children – are wholesale denied”. The only mention of criticism of UNRWA are in uncited third-party references.
2. The i24 reference is equally appalling, since its lead criticism is based on: “I am sure that there are Hamas members on the UNRWA payroll … and I don't see that as a crime.” The same point is raised in another citation as a reason to suspect UNRWA’s trustworthiness. Let us not forget that in the 2006 elections Hamas gained 48% of the vote, probably higher in Gaza due to the number of refugees there. Presumably UNRWA would therefore become more ‘trustworthy’ if it started employing discriminatory hiring practices.
3. Another Asaf Romirowsky piece is quoted as “casting a shadow” over UNRWA, that wording presumably having been chosen because the cited reference uses the word ‘apparently’ to make its most telling point.
4. If those weren’t enough, the Claudia Rosett references take the cake. UNRWA is guilty of bias against Israel because it provides social services to Gaza and thereby relieves Hamas of the burden of having to do so. No … I am quite serious, the UN agency is suspect because it provides humanitarian aid.

Furthermore, the section is justified in the Operation Protective Edge article by “During the present conflict the impartiality of UN agencies operating in a Gaza has fallen under question”. May I be permitted to introduce a section named “Western Media bias” by starting with “During the present conflict the impartiality of mainstream Western media sources have fallen under question”? I suspect that I will be reverted before I can wipe my nose.

I suggest that it is this entire subsection that displays an astonishing bias, and not UNRWA. Unless this hopelessly one-sided bigotry is addressed, plus its existence properly justified, I intend to trash the lot. Erictheenquirer (talk) 13:26, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Take it all out. The amount of time spent challenging the bona fides of a group that has provided sustenance to the poor for 60 years, educating, clothing and feeding them, not only in Gaza, is frankly obscene. It's WP:Undue also for the fact that if one wanted, for every googlable criticism of UNWRA one could google up hundreds of criticisms of parties actually engaged in militarily supporting one or the other side, and cram the text with it, spamming this article into impossible limits. These articles should be stringently wooed to the facts of what happened, the background, the outcome, established by fairly good reportage.Nishidani (talk) 13:36, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

I will wait for 24 hours to see if someone wants to defend the guilty subsection as it is.Erictheenquirer (talk) 13:44, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

I have read further, and here are some more howlers from the current text and citations:

1. Next are the missiles discovered at an UNRWA school that was in recess. In detailing UNRWA's 'untrustworthiness' the citation uses words such as 'apparently','presumably' and 'unclear', the Wiki text turning these into supposed fact = rank bad text and/or citation.
2. Next, the claim that Ocha has been criticised regarding "the reliability of the sources used in compiling the agency's reports". The Algemeiner reference provided to support this notes that the sources of the OCHAO data are B’Tselem (an Israeli human rights group established in February 1989 by a group of prominent academics, attorneys, journalists, and Knesset members), the PCHR (established in 1995 by a group of Palestinian lawyers and human rights activists), and Al Mezan (funded by official Dutch, Swiss and Swedish agencies) – "all of which are 'political' NGOs with a less than pristine record on impartiality in Israel-related matters." No mention is made of the fact that the data for Israeli casualties and attacks from Gaza come from the Israeli Security Agency, a 100% Israeli government institution, and that such a source is not required to be subject to any test of 'bias'. This playing-field has a 45º slope.

Forgot to sign Erictheenquirer (talk) 13:38, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

@JDiala, Erictheenquirer, and Nishidani: This has already been brought up here. The whole section needs to be rewritten, at the least or simply dumped. Nobody has yet done so. If you want it to happen, you should be WP:BOLD and do it. Kingsindian (talk) 15:42, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

The section is well sourced if someone have reliable sources for "western media bias" go ahead and add such section.--Shrike (talk) 19:16, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

@Shrike: Sourcing The fact that it has sources is not enough. This section was added more than a week ago, as I indicated above, by I.am.a.qwerty. It is fundamentally flawed, and 6(!!) people have noticed its fundamental flaws. The original poster has made no replies, nor has (s)he bothered to improve it. It is a mass of scattershot statements attacking the UN on mostly silly charges, all of which have been answered, and none were seen fit to be included by the original poster. There is a whole article on all the criticisms and their replies, if anyone wanted to add it. Unless the original poster tries to at least attempt to fix some of the problems, it deserves to be junked. Kingsindian (talk) 19:29, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Shrike, you reverted without apparently consulting the page or the earlier section where its inadequacy was noted. It's not our burden to perfume POV crap, - I note you haven't trouble to actually improve it, i.e. do some editing on it- the original editor plunking it in there did a poor job, and the best that can be done for it is for it to be excerpted and placed here to be reworked until a consensual version is worked out. This page is already burnt out with bad material, poor organization, over 400 sources, and close to 200,000 bytes which is three times what a comprehensive well-tuned article usually should aim at. So it is self-evident, severe pruning is required, and Eric did so after gaining the approbation of editors on the talk page.Nishidani (talk) 19:55, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

@Shrike: They were editorials written by journalists, and even though Wikipedia is open to reporting different viewpoints, if a particular statement which is made is unsubstantiated, erroneous or unencyclopedic, there is no reason why it ought to be included. JDiala (talk) 05:30, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Background

The 2012-13 subsection contains data relating to 2014. I will created a "2014" subsection for "Background" and move the 'offending' data there. Erictheenquirer (talk) 09:30, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

I was raised in an age when reading 200 pages a day was normal, and it seems young readers need to break things up constantly into snippets and sound bytes. What's the problem, can't one just have 2012-2014? That's the simplest solution, and succinct summary prose.Nishidani (talk) 13:29, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

@Erictheenquirer: I have reworded the heading and removed this artificial division. Things like the blockade and Netanyahu's comment in March 2014 in the earlier section also refer to 2014. The division in December 2014 is artificial anyway. Best to keep it together, though it can be condensed. Kingsindian (talk) 00:06, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

UNRWA section. Work out a consensual version

==Allegations of UN bias==

See also: Israel, Palestine, and the United Nations

During the present conflict, the impartiality of UN agencies operating in a Gaza has fallen under question. Critics allege that the agencies have lost their neutral standing and question their position as unbiased parties. The UN agency UNRWA has faced a number of criticisms during the conflict. Some critics contend that the UN agency lacks accountability and transparency with regards to the distribution and use of foreign funds in the Strip and the hiring of individuals associated with terrorist groups. Critics have also pointed to the three instances during the present conflict where missiles were discovered in UNRWA schools and the agency's subsequent handling of the weapons as casting a shadow over the organization's neutrality in the conflict. U.S. Senators Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), Ben Cardin (D-Md.) and Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) called for an investigation into the UNRWA's role during the conflict; the U.S. government is UNRWA's leading source of funding. The UN agency OCHA has also been criticized following its publication of causalty figures; critics question the reliability of the sources used in compiling the agency's reports. Presently, Israel and the OCHA dispute the number of civilians killed during the conflict. The OCHA has reported that approximately 70% of Gazans killed were civilians, Israel disputes this and maintains that 45-55% were combatants. Critics also point to structural biases in the UN; Arab and Muslim countries number over 50, ensuring a broad coalition criticizing Israel.

• I can't imagine this given the bloated state of the article, running to more than two lines. We all know this is pol-spin crap, and has its due refutations also. But if Shrike wants it, then he should craft a succinct synthesis summing up the charges and rebuttals.Nishidani (talk) 20:34, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

• This paragraph contains repetition of the rockets in the UNRWA facilities and the disputed civilian percentage. IMO both can be safely removed. Whatever remains belongs under "Alleged violations of IHL/Military use of UN facilities" instead of a separate section.- WarKosign (talk) 21:00, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

• The first three sentences are vague, unreferenced (or in one case lightly-referenced), weaselly-worded aspersions like "Critics allege that..." (when, as noted above, "'Israeli commentators' is a far more specific label"). The sentence "Some critics contend that [...] associated with terrorist groups" may be worth keeping someplace, though I suspect that place is [[Israel, Palestine, and the United Nations]] and not this article. Everything from "Critics have also pointed..." to "... neutrality in the conflict" and everything from "The UN agency OCHA..." to "...45-55% were combatants" is duplication of content which is already present (and better-placed) elsewhere in the article, as WarKosign notes. And the bit about what two US senators think is undue (and, as was noted elsewhere on this talk page, probably just spin for domestic consumption) and should be removed like the Irish politician's views were removed some time ago. The last sentence, which suggests certain ethnic and religious groups are inherently biased, and nations where a majority of the population is of such ethnic or religious groups are therefore also inherently going to take certain stances, is problematic for the reasons noted a few sections up. -sche (talk) 21:36, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Removal of military forces section

@Avaya1: It is extremely rude to remove a whole section with a wholly inadequate edit summary. "incomplete...clutters up" -- what kind of reasoning is this? At least have the decency to discuss on the talk page before removing stuff wholesale. Not to mention that this has already been discussed before. Kingsindian (talk) 03:59, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Adding a couple of random paragraphs about rockets into the middle of article, doesn't constitute a section, let along one which warrants the title 'Military forces and technologies employed'. Arguably we should have such a section, if someone actually writes it. But as it currently stands, you are cluttering the middle of the article with a couple of randomly chosen paragraphs about rockets. As for such a section (should one actually be written) look at precedent - no other comparable articles have this in the middle of the article, but there are some which have it at the end. (e.g. Vietnam_war#Weapons). Although most don't have such a section (e.g. 1982 Lebanon War) - the talkpage archive indicates that I'm not the first editor to remove the section. Avaya1 (talk) 04:05, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

I agree with @Avaya1:. If there is such a section, it should contain a list of all the rockets and mortar shells employed by Hamas, detailed discussion of the tunnels, and of course details of IDF's technology including the Iron Dome, planes, bulldozers and guns used. Since there are already very detailed articles on these subjects, if we need a section here at all it should only contain relevant links. The stub that Avaya1 deleted was there was pointless and did not deserve the 'technologies' title. All it served was to promote a POV saying "hamas rockets are not too bad if you are prepared to live in a bomb shelter" - WarKosign (talk) 04:38, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

I disagree.

Arguably we should have such a section, if someone actually writes it. But as it currently stands, you are cluttering the middle of the article with a couple of randomly chosen paragraphs about rockets

.

I.e., the objection was to the underwritten section that is otherwise thought necessary. Well, that means, the removing objector could improve it, or ask it be improved. Taking it out, means that the thin content is lost to editors. The simplest solution would have been to excerpt it and place it in a section here so it could be refined, rather than chucking it down the gurgler, which means editors who might improve it have to start from scratch. Editing like this just makes life hard for everyone, and is irrational. This article has bloated details on irrelevancies, and guts many things that is important by making links to sub-pages which by definition the majority of editors miss or do not follow up on.Nishidani (talk) 09:51, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

@Avaya1: I am glad that you have explained your actions here. However, the reasons don't make any sense. If you thought it should not belong in the middle of the article, why not move it to the end? There is already a section on tunnels down below, why not combine it with that, which would address WarKosign's point somewhat? The previous editor who removed it, himself added the details about the rockets afterwards. I had recently added some details about Hamas drones. There was a small start for the Israeli side, with the picture of the artillery corps and mention of bomb shelters. The section had a big "needs expansion" tag on it. Is it really illegitimate to have a section on weaponry used in a war? Instead, you unfortunately chose to trash the whole section. Kingsindian (talk) 11:13, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Gazan tunnels

I've decided to remove some of the irrelevant sentences from this paragraph. This section has multiple issues which should be resolved. Mhhossein (talk) 07:27, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Indispensable section removed by Avaya1 without discussion. To be expanded.

Gazan rockets

Range of missiles launched from Gaza Strip

The number of rockets used by Gazan militias vary in range, size and lethality. They include the M-302 which is Syrian made (based on a Chinese design), and the locally made M-75 which have the range to target Tel-Aviv. Other rockets include the Soviet Katyusha and Qassams. Hamas has also used a "crude, tactical" drone, reported to be Iranian-made and named "Ababil-1".

Lethality

According to Theodore Postol, the vast majority of Gazan artillery rocket warheads contain 10- to 20-pound explosive loads. Postol claims that these missiles are incapable of causing damage to well-sheltered people. Mark Perry states that "Hamas’ arsenal is considerably weaker today than it was in 2012" and that "Hamas’ Fajr-5 [long range rocket] guidance system was crude, at best, and its warhead nearly non-existent."

Israel

Israel has used air, land and naval weaponry. The aerial weaponry includes drones and F-16 fighter jets. Drones are used to constantly monitor the Gaza strip.

Israel's early warning sirens and extensive shelters have been an effective defense against Gazan rocketry. They are less effective against short-range mortars because of less time to react.

−

IDF Artillery Corps fires 155 mm M-109 howitzer gun, 24 July 2014

References

25% of rockets landing inside Gaza?

@WarKosign: This edit. Do you really think that the sources are adequate for this extraordinary claim? The first one is an opinion by one person, based on no evidence at all, published by Breibart.com, a partisan rag. The second is a blog post. I have talked to you earlier about depite having lots of good edits, being careful about WP:NOTADVOCATE. You should also take a look at WP:OPPONENT. Is this really the sort of evidence you would accept, coming from your opponent? Kingsindian (talk) 11:30, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

@Kingsindian: There are many sources that say that Gazans rockets sometimes malfunction. IDF has the most accurate information from Iron Dome radars, but can hardly be considered neutral. Also, as the conflict progresses Hamas progressively runs out of "good" rockets, so the malfunctions will occur more and more often, resulting in different values over time. 25% sounded high to me, but the other source mentioned "more than a third". Here is the IDF's blog, http://www.idfblog.com/blog/2014/07/31/hamas-launches-rockets-civilians-gaza/ that does not give a number. An ITIC's report mentioned that more rockets fell short in Gaza than were missed by the Iron Dome and hit populated areas in Israel. You are very welcome to find a more reliable source with different numbers. I think the main point is the fact that some rockets do fall short and do kill Gazan civilians, and (and for this point I do not have a source) these casualties are counted as if Israel killed them - since nobody counts "Gazan civilians killed by Hamas"- WarKosign (talk) 11:46, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

@WarKosign: If there are such sources from IDF or ITIC, they should be used instead, and clearly attributed per WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV. Also, I am afraid that it is not up to me to find better sources with better numbers, per WP:BURDEN. Kingsindian (talk) 11:54, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

@Kingsindian: Ok, removed 25% and added IDFblog as a source. This paragraph needs more work, I'll get to it later. - WarKosign (talk) 12:00, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

@WarKosign: I have commented out the other two sources, and attributed the claim to IDF. That is of course not the end of the matter, since there are other hurdles to cross including WP:V and WP:UNDUE based on how third-party sources treat this claim. The IDF blog is usually not, by itself allowed as a source. Kingsindian (talk) 12:10, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Background too long

I think the background section is too long. Events going back to 2011 while certainly part of the over-arching conflict are not directly related to this topic. Each of those paragraphs should be condensed down to a sentence or two with the entire "old" background being one or two paragraphs. Gaijin42 (talk) 14:29, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

@Gaijin42: I agree that the whole article, not only the background section, is too long. I am not sure if it needs to be condenses quite so much as you say. The 2011 section can certainly be condensed a bit. I have done a bit of condensing in the article, here, here and here, but most of the work remains to be done. Unfortunately, every time one condenses, people get annoyed about a) removing their work b) introducing bias c) demanding consensus on removing stuff...so it's going to take some time. Kingsindian (talk) 15:04, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

I should add that -sche has done some great work in this area of condensing stuff while retaining all the information. I am not so conscientious, and my edits involve removing undue stuff often. This of course leads to friction, which is understandable and legitimate. Kingsindian (talk) 15:07, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Possibly the main reason for the length of the Background section is the insistence that the 2014 Conflicts all be contained within an article which, despite its name "2014 Israel-Gaza Conflict" is seen to in fact be about "Operation Protective Edge". There is a move request to rename the article. As a result, not only does the pre-2014 background have to fit in, but also all the lead-up to OPE. I too find this to be ridiculous and have long been pleading for a separate article that takes over these tasks, ironically, an article about the 2014 Israel-Palestinian conflicts. I find the current situation to be artificially restrictive, but there is a powerful lobby the make Operation Protective Edge representative of the entire 2014. Until this changes, we will have to live with a bloated Background. Erictheenquirer (talk) 08:28, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

Reactions section

Please see this for an explanation for where the reactions section went. A very bold edit, but reasonable I think. If anyone has any issues, we can discuss them. It was a strange thing, half the reactions on this page, and half on the other page. Kingsindian (talk) 16:25, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Rockets before July 8

(Issue for Third opinion is the edit here)

Collapsing to prevent confusion for 3O

@Monopoly31121993: Regarding your edit here. The source is the first one cited, by Nathan Thrall. "Israel’s retaliation culminated in the 6 July bombings that killed seven Hamas militants, the largest number of fatalities inflicted on the group in several months. The next day Hamas began taking responsibility for the rockets. Israel then announced Operation Protective Edge." Kingsindian (talk) 17:58, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

@Monopoly31121993: The new phrasing is not correct. The text is saying that Hamas began claiming responsibility for rockets which were fired starting 7th July. Not that it claimed responsibility for rockets earlier. Kingsindian (talk) 18:21, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

@Kingsindian: The article states:" As protests spread through Israel and Jerusalem, militants in Gaza from non-Hamas factions began firing rockets and mortars in solidarity. Sensing Israel’s vulnerability and the Ramallah leadership’s weakness, Hamas leaders called for the protests to grow into a third intifada. When the rocket fire increased, they found themselves drawn into a new confrontation: they couldn’t be seen suppressing the rocket attacks while calling for a mass uprising. Israel’s retaliation culminated in the 6 July bombings that killed seven Hamas militants, the largest number of fatalities inflicted on the group in several months. The next day Hamas began taking responsibility for the rockets. Israel then announced Operation Protective Edge." --- To me that doesn't mean Hamas began claiming responsibility for the rocket attacks that they began launching on July 7, I believe that it means that they started to claim responsibility for all rocket attacks which they may or may not have already been conducting prior to that date.Monopoly31121993 (talk) 18:50, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

@Monopoly31121993: While we discuss this, could you please restore the previous version, which was stable for a long time? Coming to your point. Can we agree that: pre-July 7 rockets were not fired by Hamas. Post July 7 rockets included rockets by Hamas. This is what the text said earlier. "The stated aim of the operation was to stop rocket attacks from the Gaza Strip, which several non-Hamas affiliated groups had engaged in launching in June in response..." and "After an Israeli Air Force airstrike killed 7 Hamas members, Hamas itself fired rockets into Israel." This is the essential point, and it should be like that in the lead. All the nuances about "responsibility" can be mentioned in the background section. Kingsindian (talk) 19:09, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

No I'm not going to revert it. It reflects what was said in the article. If Hamas claimed responsibility for the rocket attacks then they claimed responsibility for the rocket attacks.Monopoly31121993 (talk) 20:39, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

@Monopoly31121993: I have asked for a WP:3O. Kingsindian (talk) 21:27, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

(ec)You have deliberately falsified the plain meaning of the sense, and, having been warned, persist in the error. This is a reportable offence, and such behaviour on this page, which is under strong sanctions because of the bad editors the topic tends to attract, has zero tolerance of WP:OR falsifications like these. You can be reported, so reconsider. The text in any case must be reverted compulsorily, because it distorts what the sources say. Hamas assumed responsibility for the rockets it fired from that date. It did not assume responsibility for rockets fired earlier which, it should be specified, were fired by other groups in protest against the West Bank crackdown. Even Blind Freddy and his dog can see that in the sources.Nishidani (talk) 21:32, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

No, when I checked the sources I thought the same thing Monopoly did. The point is that Hamas, which provides safe haven to a variety of militant groups, allowed these attacks on Israel. They did so to avoid being seen as sell outs like Abbas and Egypt.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 23:57, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Separating out the kidnapping of three teenagers

@TheTimesAreAChanging: Can you please not change a stable lead massively like this without discussion? I would appreciate it if you restored to the previous version while we discuss.

• Why have you added the the kidnapping of the three teenagers? There was a consensus that we will keep only immediate events in the lead, and put the rest in the background. If one goes to this route, each side will battle to add stuff till we will end up like a monstrosity of a lead like this.
• Your other point is separate. The removal of "non-". Which source claims that the groups were "Hamas-affiliated"? And "safe haven" is your own interpretation. The earlier phrasing was "non-Hamas factions". I am not sure how "non-Hamas affiliated factions" came into being. But it should be changed to "non-Hamas factions". Kingsindian (talk) 00:15, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

You cannot mention the crackdown without mentioning the kidnappings. There was a massive number of abduction attempts by Hamas members in the West Bank culminating in the kidnappings. Israel cracked down in response. Why should we only mention the effect, not the cause?TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 03:12, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

There are now two issues being discussed here. I think it's best if we keep the focus on the original issue of two understandings of the same source. I posted the original above. Is there anything in that text that leads anyone to believe that when Hamas claimed responsibility for the rocket attacks that it was only claiming responsibility for those attacks that took place after 6 July? If not, there shouldn't be any real argument here about changing this.Monopoly31121993 (talk) 03:30, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

@Monopoly31121993 and TheTimesAreAChanging:

• I agree with Monopoly that there are two separate discussions. I have moved this to a separate section, to prevent confusion. If you want to comment on the other matter, please write in the section above.
• As to the "cause and effect" cycle, we can go back eternally for this. Was the crackdown in response to the kidnapping of the three teenagers, or was it just a pretext to undermine the unity govt.? Who kidnapped the teenagers? Should the murder of the Palestinian youth be included? What about the blockade, etc. etc.? It is best if we simply keep to the immediate events in the lead, and leave the arguments to the background section. I showed you what happens to the lead if we go down this slippery slope. I again ask you to please consider restoring the original version while we discuss this. Kingsindian (talk) 10:53, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

I have no problem mentioning the blockade--although we should be careful to present the Israeli view that it is self-defense from a terrorist organization that seized power in a violent coup along with contrary sources calling it an illegal act of collective punishment on the population of Gaza--but I'm not sure there is any cause to mention the killing of the Palestinian youth. It's no less a crime, but I don't believe it played an important role in starting this war. Still, I know not to take any ownership on articles related to Israel/Palestine.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 11:14, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

@TheTimesAreAChanging: I again ask you to revert to the earlier version while we discuss. What you believe or not believe is beside the point here. There were multiple events leading to the escalation, as multiple sources mention. The Nathan Thrall article, the Economist article, the David C Hendrickson article, Mouin Rabbani article etc. Our job is not to order the lead based on our personal opinions, but what the sources say. The proximate cause of the flare-up was Hamas firing rockets in response the to the crackdown, first in the West Bank, then an air strike in Gaza. They did not fire in the previous 18 months, as the sources make clear. The rest can be (and is) explained in the background section. Kingsindian (talk) 11:27, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

The kidnapping's crucial significance is attested to by a wide variety of sources.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 12:06, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

Linkrot

Still lots. 142.204.42.75 (talk) 00:33, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

@142.204.42.75: Thanks, I have fixed at least some of them. Kingsindian (talk) 00:59, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

Citations numbers start from 35

Citations numbers start from 35. I'm unsure why, or how to fix it. Yaakovaryeh (talk) 01:00, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

@Yaakovaryeh: You can see the issue by searching for "[1]" and "[2]" etc. There are some references like the Sudarsan Raghavan one, which are not well formatted. Just see the one I fixed just now, it may give the clue as to how to fix others. Kingsindian (talk) 01:09, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

@Kingsindian: I did the rest, but it doesn't seem to have helped. Even before your fix, there were some numbers that were not on the page (ex. 5 & 9) now there is no 1,2,3,4 either, and the page still starts at 35. What am I missing here?Yaakovaryeh (talk) 03:03, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

After a bit of poking around, I figured out what was going on: the missing citations are hidden in the collapsed "supported by" sections of the "Belligerents" section of the infobox. If you expand those sections and then Crtl-F "[1]", "[2]", etc, you'll find all the citations, I think. -sche (talk) 08:35, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

@Yaakovaryeh and -sche: -sche is of course right, which I independently discovered and was just coming to the talk page to discuss, but it seems that it was too late. :) Kingsindian (talk) 10:34, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

Unity Gov.

There's a silly mention in the lead about the unity gov. ploy by Hamas and Qatar as if there was a unity gov. in Gaza. This should be moved to the background section. I'm not sure if just saying 'Hamas governed' can be accepted since the situation is "murky", but using the word "unity" is down-right nonsensical. What are your thoughts/relevant sources? MarciulionisHOF (talk) 07:39, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

The rocket barrage in March

@Erictheenquirer: I have condensed your paragraph about "alternative version" and added a reference. It seems there is no alternative version since they both agree on the facts: the firing was in response to an incursion east of Khan Yunis. Kingsindian (talk) 11:42, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

@Kingsindian:Many thanks. Much better. Plz excuse my n000bishness. I added a 3 word clarification that the 'incursion' was into Gaza territory. Erictheenquirer (talk) 12:21, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

Spies

Currently, there's at least 40 "spies" executed by Hamas. Is this information in the article? http://www.maannews.net/arb/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=722518 (recent 18+) MarciulionisHOF (talk) 12:10, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

@MarciulionisHOF: Indeed this is present in the Palestinian casualties section. It is too disjointed and sprawling though. Thanks for bringing the source to our attention. Kingsindian (talk) 12:33, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

Members or militants?

I have noticed in many places "members" is being used. This might of course be problematic since not all Hamas members are combatants. I am not sure what the correct usage is. I read somewhere else that "militants" is the accepted compromise. Not sure if it applies here. Kingsindian (talk) 12:28, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

"could not distinguish between civilians and Hamas fighters because the night vision goggles made everything look green"

@Kingsindian: regarding your edit

This is the paragraph from the source I assume you are paraphrasing:

Avi, the Golani combat soldier, said he often has trouble distinguishing civilians from Hamas fighters while inside Gaza, as some fighters are dressed in plainclothes. “You see everything in green … little green people,” he said of his view through night-vision goggles.

Note that there are two statements: 1. Avi has trouble distinguishing civilians from fighters dressed in plainclothes. 2. Everything in night-vision goggles looks green. Neither Avi nor the author of the article implies that #2 is causing #1 - WarKosign (talk) 12:47, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

@WarKosign: You are correct that they are technically separate sentences, but it seems to me that the second sentence is clearly linked to the first. Why is the second sentence present at all, if not linked to the first? If you give me some other arguments, I will revert the edit, while we discuss this. Kingsindian (talk) 12:56, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

Classic case of not understanding what an epexegetic sentence means. The first sentence is the reporter explaining what Avi is saying. The second sentence clarifies it by a direct quote. As the source has been manipulated, replacing Avi's direct comment with 'Soldiers and analysts stated that the policy was that protecting IDF soldiers was a higher priority than protecting Gazan civilians'. The whole text says:

“The IDF must take care of their soldiers before they take care of Palestinian civilians,” Avi said. “If this means to kill civilians, then OK.”

Many soldiers and IDF analysts have confirmed this policy, including Yaron Ezrahi, a professor of political science at Hebrew University. “Israel is more sensitive than any other country in the West to the death of its soldiers,” Ezrahi told the Daily Beast. “The death of [Palestinian] civilians is a moral crisis but is without political impact.”

Huge efforts have been made to plaster the IDF claim that casualties are the result of a human shields policy.One tidbit (from numerous examples I could cite) like this and it is buried by misparaphrase.

Avi's quote is the opposite of 'before they take care'. Before here means, that first we care for our soldiers and then when care for Palestinians. Avi is saying: if caring for our soldiers means Palestinians get killed, that's fine, and this is the 'policy' confirmed by Ezrahi who says in effect, IDF deaths have a political impact, Palestinian deaths do not. The latter are just a moral (i.e. personal) problem with no weight.

So what has been done is not only elide the quote, but reverse its meaning to favour the IDF construction, while misconstruing even the latter.

Nishidani (talk) 14:04, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

By the way the lead has been fucked up by source falsification. Some idiot who did read the Vanity Fair article plunked in a dubious tag which signals only the source wasn't read, but the content disliked. Could editors stop manipulating sources please.Nishidani (talk) 14:13, 22 August 2014 (UTC)