Talk:Israel–Hamas war

Hamas exaggeration in the lead

"As of 3 December 2023, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, more than 15,500 Palestinians, including over 6,000 children as of 23 November 2023, have been killed, making this the deadliest wars for children in modern times." Gaza Health Ministry is run Hamas, and these numbers are likely greatly exaggerated, and were disputed by the United States.[1] Describing this war as "deadliest wars for children in modern times" in the lede with unreliable Hamas source goes against neutrality. Crampcomes (talk) 20:01, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

If "Hamas source goes against neutrality" then we should go through and delete every claim made by the IDF or Israeli government? Obviously that would be somewhat nuts, but we should be equally skeptical of both sides (not sure if that's supposed to have a K, the Latin alphabet is my nemesis). Irtapil (talk) 04:08, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

That is very old news from Fox, the US has since essentially admitted the numbers provided by the MoH are likely accurate or an undercount. This has been repeatedly discussed, and the bit on deadliest war for children comes from the UN, not any Gazan agency. nableezy - 20:06, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

Current figure according to Hamas: 20000 killed, while according to Israel only 10000 civilians killed.[2] Since the total number of casualties is disputed, we can't make such strong statements such as "deadliest wars for children in modern times" in the lede with unreliable Hamas source which were copy/pasted by UN. Crampcomes (talk) 20:22, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

And Israel has previously said 20k dead in Gaza (and that was back in early November). Israel's propaganda can be noted, but sources treat the numbers from the MoH as reliable, and the UN statement on deadliest for children is independent. And previously discussed here for that matter. And oh by the way, the number from the MoH is 15,889 from your own source. The 20k includes the people that haven't been rescued from collapsed buildings. nableezy - 20:26, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

What you cited is an unreliable blog post. Israeli official estimate is reliable because it's a government source, while Hamas is a terrorist genocidal organization that recently committed mass crimes per many sources. Nonetheless since the number is disputed, for the sake of neutrality, we can't make such strong statements in the lede until it's fully verified. Crampcomes (talk) 20:39, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

The Israeli government and the Hamas government are BOTH government sources (though one was about a decade over due for an election). One is currently committing a genocide, the other has speculated possible genocidal aspirations (the one currently committing genocide is the one who cut off the food supply to over 2 million people). We should not take either side at face value, but there are at least two reports in the Lancet that say the Gaza MOH data is not fabricated OS exaggerated. Irtapil (talk) 04:08, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

Uh, thats Ynet, one of Israel's leading news sources. Cool story on your personal analysis, but this isnt your blog so it doesnt really count for anything here. And the material in the lead has been verified, you just think that means something that it does not. But it is a verifiable statement that the MoH in Gaza has given that as its count of dead. nableezy - 20:44, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

Even Ynet is very "tabloid" - I will consider taking your claim seriously if you can support it with Haaretz or Times of Israel? But there's two Lancet papers that back up Gaza stats. Irtapil (talk) 04:08, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

That blog post basically quoted a "security guard," not an official government statement. Crampcomes (talk) 20:49, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

it isnt a blog, and it quotes a senior security official, not a security guard. Not sure why you are just making things up for no apparent reason but cool I guess. nableezy - 21:07, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

Israeli official estimate is reliable because it's a government source, Sorry, but that is one strange statement. Gov't sources are not reliable in a war. Look at the gross exaggerations by the US gov't during the Vietnam War. Governments and militaries lie. Militaries even lie to their own governments. OTOH, the Gaza Health Ministry is a civil service group and generally considered reliable. You should self-revert your Hamas-run change. O3000, Ret. (talk) 21:13, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

Agreed. Any Al-Qassam stats I regard as fiction until proven otherwise. Though they do this weird "not lying" thing of making deliberately ambiguous claims. Irtapil (talk) 04:51, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

BBC clearly says "Hamas-run Gaza health ministry" [3] as do many other reliable sources[4][5] Crampcomes (talk) 21:23, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

Hamas are a political party and the de facto government of Gaza. Hamas's militant wing is the Al-Qassam Battalion. I do not trust Al-Qassam stats, or IDF stats, those are fiction until proven otherwise. But both health systems are the most reliable sources available for those populations, they're not perfect, but they're better than any other. (There's a messy schism within Palestine. Hamas won the parliamentary election for the whole country, but somehow the Fatah president ended up controlling the West Bank, and I'm not sure who decided the Pal Authority should be running anything? The Pal Authority seem to be Israel's idea? which does not seem very legitimate? but on a good day they seem to function as a peacekeeping force, like when they arrested the October 17 assassins in 2001?) But - whatever the explanation is for Hamas not being the government of the West Bank - their ministry of health isn't just pulling numbers out of thin air, they are providing the names and identity details of >20,000 real people. And independent people who have looked at it say it looks like real data, including those two papers I read in The Lancet, and family members of the real people who have died, including family and friends overseas. Irtapil (talk) 04:51, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

Do you mean to question the UN comment on the deadliest war for the children by this? --Mhhossein ^talk 21:32, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

It has nothing to do with any UN comment. Crampcomes (talk) 21:35, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

Reverted. This has been discussed to death already here and on other pages. Gaza MoH is considered reliable. Selfstudier (talk) 23:02, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

Gaza Health Ministry is considered reliable by whom? It is known to be run by Hamas which is considered a terrorist organization in the West. Homerethegreat (talk) 12:07, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

By multiple RS, follow the link. Was also discussed at other pages. Do keep up, to help, here are some sources:

WAPO OC 24: "Why news outlets and the U.N. rely on Gaza’s Health Ministry for death tolls" "Many experts consider figures provided by the ministry reliable, given its access, sources and accuracy in past statements."

Reuters 27 Oct "Despite Biden's doubts, humanitarian agencies consider Gaza toll reliable

AP 26 Oct "EXPLAINER: What is Gaza's Ministry of Health and how does it calculate the war's death toll?" "The United Nations and other international institutions and experts, as well as Palestinian authorities in the West Bank — rivals of Hamas — say the Gaza ministry has long made a good-faith effort to account for the dead under the most difficult conditions."The numbers may not be perfectly accurate on a minute-to-minute basis," said Michael Ryan, of the World Health Organization’s Health Emergencies Program. "But they largely reflect the level of death and injury." In previous wars, the ministry’s counts have held up to U.N. scrutiny, independent investigations and even Israel’s tallies."

Time 26 Oct"News outlets and international organizations and agencies have long relied on Israeli and Palestinian government sources for casualty figures. While they do so partly because they are unable to independently verify these figures themselves, it’s also because these statistics have proven accurate in the past."

Gdn 27 Oct "Can we trust casualty figures from the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry? "Israel and Joe Biden have shown scepticism about accuracy of rising death toll but others point to historical reliability of data"

Can we trust casualty figures from the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry? discusses the MoH methodology and goes into more details than others (e.g., immediately reported numbers are less reliable)

BBC: World Health Organization (WHO) regional emergency director Richard Brennan, based in Cairo, said last week he believed the figures provided by the health ministry were trustworthy. "We're confident that the information management systems that the ministry of health has put in place over the years stand up to analysis," he said, adding "the data over the years has been quite solid".

Die Zeit: English translation: The World Health Organization, like many other organizations, trusts the figures. "We have had good experiences with the Ministry of Health in the past, for example with vaccination campaigns. We see no reason to fundamentally doubt the numbers of wounded, dead and sick. And the question for all of us is: would we have a different discussion if there were 100 or 200 fewer deaths? I don't think so," says Lindmeier.

WSJ, 11/10: U.S. Officials Have Growing Confidence in Death Toll Reports From Gaza

Selfstudier (talk) 12:48, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

@Selfstudier:

Some of those should possibly be added to the tl|{{}} Irtapil (talk) 21:26, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

But the fact remains that more children died in the Syrian Civil war... I honestly do not think its appropriate to start comparing deadliness in the tragedy of war. But we must remain encyclopedic. (By mid-March 2022, opposition activist group the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reported the number of children killed in the conflict had risen to 25,546, and that 15,437 women had also been killed) [6] Homerethegreat (talk) 10:24, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

You're right it is disputed. And I'm pretty sure the Syrian Civil War has been deadlier, also according to the Al Jazeera source the Syrian Civil war had more casualties. Although I do not like the notion of starting to compare the deadliness of war we should not have in the page info that is unsourced. Homerethegreat (talk) 12:06, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

Guterres "graveyard for children" was removed on the thesis that a quote was inappropriate in the lead so it was replaced with RS prose instead. Sourcing such statements is not difficult, for example

NYT "In less than two months, more than twice as many women and children have been reported killed in Gaza than in Ukraine after two years of war." or "experts say that even a conservative reading of the casualty figures reported from Gaza show that the pace of death during Israel’s campaign has few precedents in this century."

The rate of killing in this conflict is notable and commented on in many sources. Selfstudier (talk) 12:27, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

"has few precedents in this century" - you can write, one of the deadliest. But you cannot write the deadliest since it is not fact. In the Syrian Civil war more children died. I do not like this notion of comparing the deadliness of war but we must remain encyclopedic and act according to sources. Homerethegreat (talk) 10:25, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

My dude, I have seen the satellite maps. We definitely have a basis not only to assess the tactical situation but also the reliability of sources. ClaudeReigns (talk) 08:29, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

I don't trust the people who killed them. I trust both health systems and neither military.

The IDF are also under reporting t own wounded, Israeli hospitals report at least triple.

own Irtapil (talk) 03:50, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

@nableezy, if the numbers have been independently assessed as accurate by a third party, then that source should be cited within the article. The sources as the stand (CBS News and Aljazeera) don't actually provide the source/references for the information within their reporting other than "according to the Ministry of Health in Gaza". It is not sure where or whom from the MoH in Gaza provided that number nor whether it is reliable. We need to use better sources or change the wording to be definitive. Aeonx (talk) 19:55, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

No, there are sources saying the MOH numbers are reliable but no source is independently assessing each update. The sources saying the MOH are reliable are enough for us to treat them as such. nableezy - 21:46, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

Heh? You claimed "the US has since essentially admitted the numbers provided by the MoH are likely accurate or an undercount." from that comment I can only assume there has been some sort of secondary assessment, either by the US or another 3rd party, as to the Gaza MoH numbers. All I'm asking you to do is reference your comment using a suitable source in the article. At present the article references merely references news reporting which claims to reference Gaza MoH but doesn't actually provide a Gaza MoH source or reference. Whether you think/believe the Gaza MoH is reliable or not is irrelevant because it is NOT the cited source in the article. Let's get it fixed. Aeonx (talk) 10:45, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

Yes they said that the MOH numbers are accurate but they are not under signing every update. It isn’t about what I think, it’s about what the sources think and they say the numbers are accurate. nableezy - 12:45, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

@Nableezy, From what I can tell, the cited sources in the lead DO NOT say the numbers are accurate. I would suggest that news reporters simply repeating the numbers they are given are not making any assessed judgement as to the accuracy of the numbers. Whilst the UN and some other parties have stated they believe the overal MOH numbers are generally accurate - there is no clear assessment as to whether the deaths are civilians or armed militants, there is also clear argument that the numbers may be propaganda - which isn't mentioned in the article. Based on your responses and others to this thread thus far, I believe it is appropriate to flag the numbers as Disputed until such time there are reliable sources to verify the numbers given are indeed from reliable MoH sources or are otherwise assessed as reliable - both incrementally, and in terms of a detailed breakdown. There is no cited source I can see in the article that does that. At present we have neither reliable cited sources as needed, and I can only agree with @. Crampcomes on this one. There are also locally-based assessments which dispute the numbers, for example: JCPA . Aeonx (talk) 06:17, 20 December 2023 (UTC)

@Aeonx: This article by PBS, a reputed source, has pretty much answered your doubt with the Gazan Ministry of Health. The United Nations and other international institutions and experts, as well as Palestinian authorities in the West Bank — rivals of Hamas — say the Gaza ministry has long made a good-faith effort to account for the dead under the most difficult conditions. You're not convincing us with a neo-conservative think tank/pro-Israel advocacy group source like the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (JCPA). -- Sameboat - 同舟 (talk · contri.) 07:03, 20 December 2023 (UTC)

You seem to be suggesting a source is unreliable because it's opined to be Israeli neo-conservative. That reeks of bias. As for the PBS claim, it's not referenced in the article nor does it provide an assessment of the incremental numbers. Or the breakdown of civilians/militants. So no, it doesn't answer my doubt. The Wikipedia article is quoting numbers as reliable fact that for all we, the UN agencies, and PBS actually know could simply be Hamas propaganda numbers. The Wikipedia article should at least state that the numbers are claimed, not verified. Aeonx (talk) 18:20, 20 December 2023 (UTC)

That isn’t what the sources say and you cannot use your opinion in place of the sources. And here is The Lancet saying that the MOH numbers are reliable. Here are the Israelis saying the numbers are accurate. That you don’t believe the numbers is your own problem, one that this article need not take seriously. nableezy - 18:36, 20 December 2023 (UTC)

Again, NONE of the sources you provide ascertain that the breakdown of deaths in terms of Hamas reporting of civilian deaths vs militant deaths are accurate. None. Zilch. Nada.

The issue isn't the total number of deaths but the breakdown. Hamas claims they are civilian deaths, Israel claims they are Terrorists/Militants.

Where is the reliable source that verifies they are civilian deaths and not militant deaths? Aeonx (talk) 09:04, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

The ministry of health has claimed no such thing, that objection appears to be entirely made up. They have reported women and children but have not claimed any civilian vs militant breakdown. And neither does the article. That little goalpost shifting attempt now is interesting but has nothing to do with what the article or the sources say. Think we’re done here now. nableezy - 12:48, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

Are you trying to tell me women and children can not be militants / terrorists? It's well known that Hamas recruits children to fight, unsurprising given Gaza has one of the youngest populations in the world. Aeonx (talk) 09:56, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

According to past discussions on WP:RSP[7], JCPA is generally unreliable. If you think JCPA's credibility or claims can rival those of UN or Lancet, please gain acceptance on WP:RSP first, which is almost a guaranteed failure. Other than that, there is not much can be said, so please drop the stick and move on. -- Sameboat - 同舟 (talk · contri.) 23:54, 20 December 2023 (UTC)

Cool story, but you missed the point. I'm not disputing the TOTAL numbers are inaccurate. I'm merely stating there appears to dispute publically over whether the civilian death numbers are accurate as civilian deaths instead of militant / terrorist deaths. This isn't an argument for me to claim one source is better than another, just an argument over what sources ACTUALLY say, and how they sources are presented within the article. Aeonx (talk) 09:07, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

Your argument concerning civilian/militant casualties has little to no relevance to the credibility of Gaza MoH. According to the Associated Press, Gaza MoH never distinguishes between civilians and combatants.[8] Wikipedia relies on information from credible sources, and in this instance, the UN backs Gaza MoH as impartial and non-propagandist. If you cannot present another reliable source regarding the civilian-to-terrorist casualty ratio, this debate is essentially concluded. -- Sameboat - 同舟 (talk · contri.) 10:25, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

I support this argument. Numbers, if the only source is Gaza Health, should disclose that. But the preference should be for the assessments of actual news organizations and first hand reporters. MatthewDalhousie (talk) 06:31, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

The Lancet Irtapil (talk) 04:55, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

There is more to that. There are Casualties numbers in Infobox and they are not attributed. There should be an attribution at who is the source for the number is. Manyareasexpert (talk) 00:36, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

they're sourced directly, aren't they? EvergreenFir (talk) 00:49, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

They are sourced and they also should be attributed. Manyareasexpert (talk) 01:04, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

why? WP:ATTRIBUTION is satisfied and the info infobox is not a place to do WP:YESPOV EvergreenFir (talk) 01:16, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

As a reader, I want to know which side reports the number. Manyareasexpert (talk) 01:24, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

There are links. You can't expect all this detail in an infobox. Not its purpose. O3000, Ret. (talk) 01:41, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

Let's take one. "Number of UN staff killed in the Gaza Strip rises to 79". What side is this? Attribution is one of basics of WP:NPOV. I don't want all the details. "Source: Israel" or "Source: HAMAS" or "Source: UN" would be enough. Manyareasexpert (talk) 01:47, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

Discussion at [9] O3000, Ret. (talk) 02:10, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

That's exactly why when you click the citation it takes you to the reference list for you to see who said it EvergreenFir (talk) 03:07, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

There are very good recent reports I've seen in Times of Israel and France 24 with detailed stats for Israeli side, they're in some of my 3000 open tabs… someone else will probably be able to find them before i do. Irtapil (talk) 00:37, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

According to the NYTimes, Israeli sources estimate ~15,000 dead in Gaza, with at least 5,000 of them being combatants. Its not an official attribution, but if its more widely reported can put a stop to this conversation. TimeEngineer (talk) 13:48, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

They said more than that, they said that the Gazan MoH numbers are roughly accurate according to Israel too. On Monday, a senior Israeli military official, speaking on condition of anonymity under army rules, told reporters that the Gazan ministry’s estimate of 15,000 total deaths was roughly accurate but that at least 5,000 people killed in Gaza were combatants, rather than civilians. nableezy - 13:53, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

Reuters today latest on this, confirms historical reliability of Palestinian figures as well as the likelihood that the actual death toll is actually higher than reported. Selfstudier (talk) 13:16, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

Hamas is supposedly concurrently running a campaign of misinformation since this war started, see this report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies: Social Media Platforms Were Not Ready for Hamas Misinformation. According to some reports, Hamas's misinformation has been parroted by some media, see these for example: Media are still promoting Hamas’ cynical lies, and Why Hamas is an Unreliable Source and How Many Reporters Fail to Disclose This Crampcomes (talk) 21:59, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

That stuff can go in Misinformation in the 2023 Israel–Hamas war Selfstudier (talk) 11:09, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

I ask for reliability evaluation of the 3 sources provided by Crampcomes, namely "Center for Strategic and International Studies", "The Jewish Star" and " InvestigativeProject.org". -- Sameboat - 同舟 (talk · contri.) 11:32, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

InvestigativeProject is an anti-Muslim hate site and not a usable source. The Jewish Star article is a partisan opinion piece in a minor newspaper, not very valuable. CSIS is a US think tank (meaning, an undisclosed lobbying organisation for U.S. weapons manufacturers) but their article appears factual. DFlhb (talk) 12:03, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

The CSIS paper also has nothing to do with casualty figures or the ministry of Health. nableezy - 16:18, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

Can you guys join my talk section “ Subject on moving first paragraph lead sentence to second paragraph” as there is no one joining in Bobisland (talk) 11:29, 9 December 2023 (UTC)

CSIS is a USA think tank with links to the USA military. If you don't trust "Hamas run MOH" you sure as heck shouldn't trust that, that's more like an "Al-Qassam Brigades funded Think Tank". I think the CSIS does some interesting work, but I try to view it a bit sceptically. Irtapil (talk) 22:01, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

I believe the 15,000 but the 5,000 seems unlikely. I wouldn't trust it unless the numbers of male and female adult civilians are comparable.

The IDF are claiming 8000 but in the stats I've seen, the excess of men vs women is only about 2000.

Which pro Palestinian biased sources attribute to large numbers of men and boys doing the very dangerous job of digging people out of the rubble by hand. News footage confirms the job is pretty much 100% men and boys, but i think plausibly a lot of the excess is combatants.

So, That still leaves 6000 that one of the the military sides is lying about, either

.

1 the IDF lying about 6000 civilian men, or 2. Gazan militant groups are hiding most of their dead.

I think #2 is much more plausible than Gaza faking 15,000+ civilian deaths (of real people with names and relatives, including an usually large number of relatives in foreign countries).

But if anyone is lying about thousands of deaths, it's the most likely to be IDF lying about thousands of civilian men and teenage boys who they have killed. The USA tries the "military age male" lie contently.

I'm sightly proud that in Australia we seem to chase our own war criminals before anyone else dies, but that's another story.<

Irtapil (talk) 22:21, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

Honnestly, the Gaza MOH statsl look much more like an UNDER count.

The under counting started on 27 October. You can see it "hit a ceiling" at the same time that the deaths per thousand state for UN workers overtakes it (in a Lancet paper that i need to make some sort of reference template for).

And additional to that, on the REMOTE possibility that the IDF isn't lying about 8000 dead militants, that's at least an additional 6000 that Al-Qassam are either hiding from Gaza MOH or pressuring Gaza MOH not to report.

Because the 8000 figure would be every adult male in the Gaza MOH stats, when only 40,000 of the half a million men in Gaza are Hamas Militants.

The IDF somehow managing to kill 16,000 women and children, but ZERO adult male civilians is more nonsensical than Russia's COVID death statistics (equal max of 799 deaths per day 4 times in the same month).

The most likely explanation is that the IDF has decided there's suddenly 10 times more blokes in Hamas's military than there were a few months ago? And, while the IDF are currently doing their best to boost Al-Qassam recruitment ("the IDF killed my family" is the most common reason to join) I really don't think they've managed 100% do you?

So, either

1. 1 the IDF is reporting almost all of the >6000 civilian men they've killed as a militants
2. 2 Al-Qassam are hiding 6000 militant deaths
3. 3 or IDF bombs have a magic ability to avoid civilians, but only if they're adult men?

I think it's probably 1, but i wouldn't rule out 2. War deaths are far easier to hide than fabricate.

The Gaza MOH aren't just pulling numbers out of the air.

The 20,000 deaths are real people with names, dates of birth, and Israeli ID numbers, they have relatives and friends. If you tried to fake the deaths of 20,000 real people, somebody would notice very soon.

Irtapil (talk) 21:55, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

The UN estimates have often squared up with IDF estimates, in the medium term. This Associated Press article shows that, with regards to the war in this region ten years ago, Israel’s Foreign Ministry reported 2,125 Palestinians killed, the same as the UN reported, and only a bit lower than Gaza's ministry of health estimated it to be, at 2,310. The vast disagreement is over how many of those people were legitimate combatants. I recommend we go off the UN numbers. And are open about the dispute whether all or some or most of those people were considered combatants.

MatthewDalhousie (talk) 22:16, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

Most developed nations have a national health care system. We wouldn't call the Israel national health care system "IDF-run" or "Likud-run." If anything, the Gaza Health Ministry is less run by Hamas than Israel's is run by the government because Gaza's healthcare system isn't very well developed due to the occupation. Catboy69 (talk) 15:51, 13 December 2023 (UTC)

Mention of apartheid RfC

In the historical background of the war, is it necessary to include references to apartheid claims? Dovidroth (talk) 11:01, 17 December 2023 (UTC)

@Dovidroth Yes it is Abo Yemen✉ 16:39, 20 December 2023 (UTC)

Survey

• No. Most mainstream sources do not mention apartheid in the context of the war or as its background. Dovidroth (talk) 11:01, 17 December 2023 (UTC)
• WP:RFCBEFORE???? nableezy - 11:48, 17 December 2023 (UTC)

  Here??? I know the discussion was 2 weeks ago, but I simply didn't have time to sit on formulating the question. Dovidroth (talk) 12:01, 17 December 2023 (UTC)

  Where is the discussion that showed a lack of consensus on this topic? Not having time isn’t a reason to make everybody else waste theirs. nableezy - 12:12, 17 December 2023 (UTC)

  I just sent you the link. Dovidroth (talk) 12:22, 17 December 2023 (UTC)

• No per Davidroth, and I note that the references to apartheid in the article (such as the one with footnotes 181 and 182) fail to reflect that the sources concern denial of the apartheid claim. Coretheapple (talk) 15:55, 17 December 2023 (UTC)

  so? they wouldn't be denying a claim that wasn't made? Irtapil (talk) 01:07, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

• No per Dovidorth, I think it was rather unfitting and rather disconnected per the time. Furthermore, there is a truth to Dovidorth's statement that most mainstream sources do not mention Apartheid in the context of the war.Homerethegreat (talk) 16:02, 17 December 2023 (UTC)

  Reliable sources do mention the apartheid in the context of reporting on the war(The Guardian[10], Times of Israel[11], Human Rights Watch[12], Vox, Professor John Mearsheimer[13], The Jakarta Post[14], MSNBC[15], Amnesty International[16], BBC News[17] etc). Even pro-Israeli news reporting mentioned (and argued against) the apartheid analogy([18][19]).The question is not whether it should be mentioned, but how we can mention it in a neutral way, giving WP:DUE weight to all opinions. VR _talk 17:13, 17 December 2023 (UTC)

  If you search for that term in your query, you can find articles that mention it, but that is WP:CHERRYPICKING, and invalidates your conclusion. Because there is now such a vast number of articles about this war, you can find a lot of terms if you search for them, but that is a biased search and doesn't prove anything. Here are a dozen articles that mention "New Jersey" somewhere in the article: (1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12). This list of articles doesn't prove anything, except that there are now lots and lots of articles about the war. Mathglot (talk) 18:16, 17 December 2023 (UTC)

  Did you read the articles I mentioned? They mention apartheid in some meaningful and relevant way. The stuff about New Jersey could very well be relevant - one of your articles says one of the victims of the Hamas attack was from New Jersey, and that is covered in the part on foreign casualties (whether in this article or the subarticle on casualties). VR _talk 18:21, 17 December 2023 (UTC)

• No. The majority of sources on the 2023 Israel–Hamas war do not mention apartheid, therefore per WP:UNDUE neither should we. I did an unbiased news search for 2023 Israel–Hamas war. Looking at the titles of the first 100 results, the number of articles with apartheid in the title was zero; the number with apartheid in the search result abstract was zero. I opened the top ten and checked the entire article with search-in-page, and the number of articles with apartheid in the body of the article was zero. My conclusion is that apartheid is hardly ever mentioned in current news articles about the 2023 Israel–Hamas war. Mathglot (talk) 17:52, 17 December 2023 (UTC)

  News sources seldom contain in-depth background information about events. IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 17:59, 17 December 2023 (UTC)

  You may well be right about that. This article documents a current news event; some day, there will be books written about it, and I can well imagine that they might discuss the background going back to British Mandatory Palestine and possibly use the term apartheid, and if and when they do, those would be great WP:SECONDARY sources to use to include the background information you wish to include. But lacking that information now, under what policy or guideline do you propose that we should mention it at this point, if the sources do not? Wikipedia follows, it does not lead. Mathglot (talk) 18:39, 17 December 2023 (UTC)

  @Mathglot: if being mentioned in the first 100 articles in an unbiased news search was the threshold for inclusion, there's a LOT that can be removed from this article! Also, kinda curious how you determined that none of the articles mentioned apartheid. Did you read through every single one of them or use some tool? VR _talk 18:08, 17 December 2023 (UTC)

  Reread my comment; I was completely transparent about my methodology. It's possible that another search method will demonstrate that apartheid does belong in the article, and if someone does that, I will change my vote. I'm just saying no one has done that so far. Wikipedia needs to follow the sources, not start with what we want to include, and then search for sources that validate it; that's backwards; we need to start from the best sources available, and summarize the majority opinion we find there, wherever that takes us. Mathglot (talk) 18:29, 17 December 2023 (UTC)

  The "first 100 results" is not a methodology specified in our editorial policies. Please cite at least one paragraph from our policy which could back you up. First of all, as IOHANNVSVERVS have already said "news sources seldom contain in-depth background information about events". This is even more relevant for an ongoing military conflict started few months ago. -- Sameboat - 同舟 (talk · contri.) 04:51, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

  Sure, I can do that. But it's too long for the Survey section, so I'll add it to the Discussion below. Thanks for asking. Mathglot (talk) 21:30, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

  If you're searching for "Israel Hamas war" that's what the majority say, but sources calling it that are giving one side of the story. A few sources I've seen from South Africa (relevant to apartheid) call it "operation Toofan Al-Aqsa" or things like "Resistance against the colonial occupation" etc. those are probably too biased to include, but "war in Gaza" or "Israel Palestine war" etc. might find some more moderate views from the middle. We shouldn't be basing this article too heavily on USA sources. Irtapil (talk) 01:01, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

• Comment: This RfC is similar to a previous discussion on this talk page here [20]. IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 17:57, 17 December 2023 (UTC)
• Yes, VR provided many sources referencing apartheid as relevant to the background of the current war in Gaza. IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 18:07, 17 December 2023 (UTC)
• YesI seems perfectly valid to include at least a reference to this. In my brief search I have turned up several RS that support this. Lukewarmbeer (talk) 18:40, 17 December 2023 (UTC)
• unrelevant RFC. What matters is what the sources say. The criterias for naming apartheid rely on several strict points established by International Court of Justice; Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and denials of facts recognized as such by many Human Watch un-gouvernmental organisations would be wp:censorship. Reading pro-israel comments with biaised opinions in this previous talk Talk:2023_Israel–Hamas_war/Archive_29#Large_removal, rightfully raises questions. Iennes (talk) 19:02, 17 December 2023 (UTC)

  @IennesPlease strike your comment falsely accusing people with a different opinion of lobbying. If I’m misinterpreting what you’re saying, please correct me. Drsmoo (talk) 23:46, 17 December 2023 (UTC)

  @Iennes - You are entitled to disagree with me and many others here, but you are not entitled to cast personal attacks and accusations without evidence. If you do not strike this, I will consider reporting you. Dovidroth (talk) 06:53, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

  What exactly would you like Iennes to strike from their comments?

  "Denials of facts recognized as such by many Human Watch un-gouvernmental organisations would be wp:censorship" and "Reading pro-israel comments with biaised opinions in this previous talk Talk:2023_Israel–Hamas_war/Archive_29#Large_removal, rightfully raises questions" are both reasonable statements which do not include personal attacks. IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 07:12, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

  “Reading pro-israel comments with biaised opinions in this previous talk Talk:2023_Israel–Hamas_war/Archive_29#Large_removal, rightfully raises questions.” I see this as a personal attack against pro-Israel editors. If it is not, please clarify. Dovidroth (talk) 07:21, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

  WP:WIAPA — "Note that it is not a personal attack to question an editor about their possible conflict of interest on a specific article or topic"

  WP:NPOV — "All encyclopedic content on Wikipedia must be written from a neutral point of view(NPOV) [...] without editorial bias."

  IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 07:34, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

• Malformed RfC, but yes. In addition to the sources raised by VR, two more from Vox discussing apartheid in the context of the war: 1 2; from Reuters: 3; another from Amnesty (UK) discussing apartheid at some length: 4; from Jacobin (possibly an opinion piece but not labelled as such): 5; from Newsweek: 6; from HuffPo: 7. Not only is it relevant background to the war as a whole, it also contextualizes other details such as South Africa suspending relations with Israel and the rhetoric used in ongoing ceasefire protests. Outright exclusion is not justifiable, the issue is NPOV and WP:DUE. WillowCity^(talk) 19:53, 17 December 2023 (UTC)

  I agree with this. It's NPOV and DUE. Jikybebna (talk) 11:14, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

• Yes, Absolutely. Just because the Israeli government denies it doesn't make the mountain of academia on Israeli apartheid any less valid. To not mention it would be purposefully ignoring the context and causes of the war. You might as well try to rewrite Rhodesian Bush War without mentioning apartheid. ArthropodLover (talk) 01:58, 18 December 2023 (UTC)
• No, Absolutely per Dovidroth. With regards, Oleg Y. (talk) 03:06, 18 December 2023 (UTC)
• No per Dovidroth and Mathglot. Zanahary (talk) 03:08, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

• Yes. OP (Dovidroth)'s claim that apartheid isn't mentioned in mainstream media is false, as the apartheid issue of Israel against Palestinians has been being consistently mentioned in reliable sources since the Oct 7 terror attack. Presenting apartheid as a background of this conflict is in line with our WP:DUE weight policy. -- Sameboat - 同舟 (talk · contri.) 04:56, 18 December 2023 (UTC)
• Yes. Israel and apartheid. Ghazaalch (talk) 05:36, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

• No. while it is very relevant to mention that "Palestinians are in despair over a never-ending occupation in the West Bank and suffocating blockade of Gaza" as a part of the context (and it is indeed mentioned), the use of the term "apartheid" is inconsistent with the low-key spirit of Wikipedia , being factual and non-judgmental. Mentioning that some non-profits "have likened the Israeli occupation to apartheid, although this characterization is disputed" just emphasizes the fact that the point about the despair is factual and sufficient in the background. By the way, similarly, the phrase "viewed from Gaza, things were only going to get worse, considering that Netanyahu's coalition partners opposed a two-state solution for the conflict. He suggested they would prefer to annex the entirety of the West Bank" is relevant, while the speculative non-factual addition "even at the expense of turning Israel into an apartheid state" is biased, judgmental and not with the spirit of Wikipedia. Agmonsnir (talk) 06:49, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

  Please quote our policy or guideline which specifically requires Wikipedia to be "low-key spirit". If anything, Wikipedia actually encourages editor to be bold, as long as the edit is consistent with our editorial policies. If multiple reliable sources agree on a point of view, whether it is disagreed by other entity, we present that POV in our articles without unnecessary compromise. -- Sameboat - 同舟 (talk · contri.) 07:45, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

• Yes: per the sources provided by VR. If the sources say it, we can say it, duh. Doesn't need an RFC to state what is obvious from basic policy. If RS mention it, it is relevant for inclusion. If they say it is related, we sat it is related. If they say it is unrelated, we say it is unrelated. Etc. Also WP:TROUT the filer for inadequate WP:RFCBEFORE and source hunting, i.e. simply not looking hard enough for the relevant sources that were so readily discovered. Iskandar323 (talk) 22:07, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

  There was a large discussion here. How do you think that this is lacking WP:RFCBEFORE? Dovidroth (talk) 10:04, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

• Yes? Even if the apartheid is debatable, adding information on it to help people come to their own conclusions is better than obscuring history. Salmoonlight (talk) 09:51, 19 December 2023 (UTC)
• Yes, it should have a brief, carefully-worded and attributed mention in the article body (likely just a single sentence, part of a sentence, or even as little as just one word in a prose list of some sort, such as the list motivations claimed by Hamas.) There's sufficient coverage to support the idea that it is something enough sources consider relevant that it ought to be briefly mentioned; the sources that do exist support the idea that it's a small but significant flashpoint in the underlying background. I don't think the arguments against it above are sufficient to exclude a mere single-sentence mention in the body - they would make perfect sense if we were discussing adding it to the lead or creating an entire section or paragraph for it or somesuch; but we're discussing a bare mention, which has a much lower standard. We don't need to have the majority of sources mentioning something just to include a single sentence noting somewhere in the body; we just need enough sources to demonstrate that significant mainstream / non-fringe discussion exists, which it certainly does. --Aquillion (talk) 08:17, 20 December 2023 (UTC)

• No per Dovidroth and Mathglot. TaBaZzz (talk) 14:01, 20 December 2023 (UTC)

• No per Dovidroth and Mathglot. Ilenart626 (talk) 16:07, 20 December 2023 (UTC)

• Yes This is extremely important context, and is well-sourced from many reliable sources. The idea that it is irrelevant because breaking news stories don't always include it is absurd on its face- news articles updating on a war do not need to include a history of the conflict. An encyclopedia entry, however, should. Zellfire999 (talk) 17:13, 20 December 2023 (UTC)

• No This is undue in an article about the 2023 Israel-Hamas war. The vast majority of reliable sources do not mention this concept in the context of the war. Even most of those making the accusation rarely refer to the Gaza Strip, where there are no Israeli settlements. Marokwitz (talk) 18:42, 20 December 2023 (UTC)

  Categorically untrue that most of those making the accusation rarely refer to the Gaza Strip. The very first sentence of B'Tselem's page on apartheid: "The Israeli regime enacts in all the territory it controls (Israeli sovereign territory, East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip) an apartheid regime." In the main Human Rights Watch report on Israeli apartheid, "Gaza" is mentioned over 250 times; HRW has very recently, in the context of the war, discussed Israeli apartheid in relation to Gaza. And from Amnesty International, just this June: "Israel/OPT: latest Gaza offensive highlights human toll of apartheid; and in another article published in October: "[independent investigation] is vital as ending the longstanding impunity for war crimes and crimes against humanity and securing justice and reparation for victims are essential to prevent recurrence of these atrocities and to address the root causes of the conflict, such as Israel’s system of apartheid imposed on all Palestinians." These are three of the most prominent sources alleging apartheid, and all of them refer to Gaza; HRW and Amnesty refer to it in the context of the war. So should we, with adequate attribution. WillowCity^(talk) 18:55, 20 December 2023 (UTC)

• No, per Agmonsnir. פעמי-עליון (talk) 20:20, 20 December 2023 (UTC)

• No. The notion of apartheid is totally irrelevant here - per Dovidroth, Agmonsnir and Marokwitz. GidiD (talk) 08:58, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

• Yes, per VR and others. —Trilletrollet [ Talk | Contribs ] 10:42, 21 December 2023 (UTC)
• Yes per VR and WillowCity Parham wiki (talk) 15:16, 21 December 2023 (UTC)
• Yes - discussing Palestine, in an article this long, without mentioning apartheid in the background information is nonsense. The amount of source material available that discusses apartheid in this context is humongous. If you just Google the word "apartheid", you don't have to scroll for long before encountering mentions of the Zionist entity. --- C&C (Coffeeandcrumbs) 06:54, 22 December 2023 (UTC)
• No. It's not relevant to this article. Apartheid has to do with the West Bank Palestinians first and foremost, since they are the ones who generally commute to and from Jerusalem to work and stuff like that. Gaza was actually given back to Hamas for complete self-determination. Andre🚐 20:00, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

  So it's like a Bantustan then. —Trilletrollet [ Talk | Contribs ] 20:57, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

  Regarding the Bantustan analogy, it doesn't work in several respects. The Bantustans were nominally independent, but lacked any actual autonomy. Whereas in Israel, there are Arab members of the Knesset. There are also political parties that represent both the West Bank and Gaza. Unlike the Bantustans, neither Israel nor the West Bank nor Gaza are ethnically homogeneous or enforced for particular ethnic groups. Israel has Christian, Jewish, Arab, Druze etc citizens who all have political and civil rights. In the Palestinian territories, each one has chosen their own leaders; while they haven't held elections for a while, they aren't following a system imposed upon them by Israel. If they were, one assumes, they'd have little Knessets. The Bantustans consisted of black citizens of South Africa who were deported or forced into "independent" places, some of which were not, even in name. You can certainly claim that because of the blockade, Gaza is de facto occupied, but politically, they are not subject to Israel. Arab citizens of Israel and Palestinian citizens of Israel exist, there were no black citizens of South Africa when they were forced into the Bantustans. Andre🚐 06:07, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

  No part of that last sentence is true. nableezy - 21:00, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

  See Israeli disengagement from Gaza Andre🚐 21:14, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

  "Despite the 2005 Israeli disengagement from Gaza,[15] the United Nations, international human rights organisations, and the majority of governments and legal commentators consider the territory to be still occupied by Israel" - Gaza Strip. IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 21:22, 22 December 2023 (UTC) IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 21:22, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

  Due to the blockade yes, but there's no apartheid in Gaza was my point. It's a separate walled off place where Hamas is in charge. Andre🚐 21:23, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

  So say you. Plenty of RS disagree. And as for "walled off", well... that says it all, doesn't it? WillowCity^(talk) 21:25, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

  Yes, apartheid refers to a working underclass, and I'd accept it may apply to the West Bank, but Gaza is walled off, the settlements there were dismantled, and it's administered by Hamas who haven't held an election since 2006. Andre🚐 21:27, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

  I have never seen this definition of apartheid before, including under the Rome Statute and the ICSPCA, but even if such a definition existed, would it include a working underclass like this? WillowCity^(talk) 21:31, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

  Yes, like that. But that ended in 2007 due to Hamas taking over, that's my point exactly. Andre🚐 00:22, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

  That is not correct at all, there were approximately 19,000 Gazan men working permitted to work in Israel (predominantly in construction and agricultural jobs) when the war broke out on October 7. The Israeli government avenged itself on them by stripping them of their legal status, rounding them up, forcing them into cages for several weeks, and ultimately deporting them back to Gaza (with many still wearing plastic ID tags around their wrists and ankles). Edited for accuracy. WillowCity^(talk) 01:05, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

  I stand corrected; Hamas's takeover greatly curtailed but did not entirely end the practice.[21] Before the Hamas takeover in 2007, some 120,000 Gazans worked inside Israel. Nearly all lost their permits when Israel tightened the blockade that year. Andre🚐 01:08, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

  “Occupied by Israel” does not mean “apartheid”. The accusation is a fringe view to begin with and is undue in this context. Dovidroth (talk) 17:13, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

  It's factually incorrect that it's a fringe view. See Israel and Apartheid. JDiala (talk) 12:42, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

  Im well aware. Your statement is entirely false on all angles. Not Hamas, not self-determination, not complete. nableezy - 21:24, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

this is because you are defining "mainstream" as "USA" - the world is not the USA. Irtapil (talk) 01:05, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

Bickering among editors addressing each other's behavior and unrelated to the Rfc question.

@Andrevan: Much of your discussion above is WP:OR. It is important to note that your own views on whether or not it is apartheid are not particularly relevant. We go by what the WP:RS say, and there are myriad independent reliable sources alleging apartheid. Furthermore, whether or not the designation applies to Gaza or just the West Bank is likewise not relevant. Hamas has clearly indicated (and which we have also included in the article) that provocations in the West Bank were deemed by it a casus belli. JDiala (talk) 12:49, 25 December 2023 (UTC) It's not OR, this is a talk page an an RFC. Don't WP:BLUDGEON the proceedings. I really don't care what Hamas thinks or indicates or deems. There's no justification that should be added about apartheid as that itself would be WP:SYNTH. Andre🚐 21:25, 25 December 2023 (UTC) You are using your personal unsourced opinion on what apartheid constitutes as a rationale for excluding the accusation. This is clearly WP:OR. The article clearly does care what Hamas thinks, given that Hamas' justifications for the events figure predominately in the background sections. Several of those justifications discuss events in the West Bank, so the distinction between apartheid in the West Bank and Gaza is immaterial. It's not WP:SYNTH as several sources explicitly mention apartheid in relation to the war. JDiala (talk) 00:17, 26 December 2023 (UTC) I don't need to provide sources for all of my sentences on talk pages, JDiala, nor does OR apply to talk pages. I did not say the article should omit Hamas' POV, I said I do not care. Leave me alone, you're not going to convince me to change my view with these spurious wikilawyering arguments. Andre🚐 00:21, 26 December 2023 (UTC) With respect to your last allegation of "wikilawyering", I would refer you to WP:GF and WP:CIVIL. Deciding to exclude well-sourced material purely on the basis of personal disagreements with said material is clearly WP:OR. JDiala (talk) 00:27, 26 December 2023 (UTC) You're once again misusing that policy, thus my statement of wikilawyering, which is not incivil when the appropriate in-context description of what you're doing; you don't understand how that OR policy applies, you can't charge me with OR when I haven't even edited anything. I explained why I think apartheid applies to the West Bank, and not to Gaza, due to Hamas taking over Gaza in 2006 and therefore, it's no longer apartheid, but now something different. Still bad, but different. That's throwing you a bone, but the point is that if you want to convince me to change my view, you need multiple high quality sources that say Gaza is an example of apartheid and that precipitated the war. Continuing to bludgeon the discussion after I asked you to leave me alone isn't going to do anything. If you have those sources, you are welcome to present them. Andre🚐 00:31, 26 December 2023 (UTC) I will once again refer you to WP:GF and WP:CIVIL. It is strange to me that an editor with such substantial experience believes it appropriate to resort to personal attacks on RfCs. The term "wikilawyering" is clearly an ad hominem attack, regardless of the spin you provide to defend its use. It is likewise bizarre to ask to be "left alone" on a talk page where the point is precisely to engage with others on these issues. With respect to OR: if you argue on the talk page to make an edit X such that if edit X is made it would constitute an instance of WP:OR, that is ipso facto an OR violation. The irony here is that your legalistic rendition of the OR policy is more akin to wikilawyering than anything I have said. Most sensible editors realize it is inappropriate to make personal assessments on what technical legal jargon like "apartheid" means without reference to WP:RS. Finally, with regard to sources, and with regard to the Gaza/West Bank distinction, this has been discussed extensively elsewhere in the RfC. JDiala (talk) 00:57, 26 December 2023 (UTC) You are now the one personalizing the dispute, by bringing my experience into it, or questioning whether I am "sensible." Again, wikilawyering refers to your misuse of a policy and not to you as an ad hominem. It is not an OR violation for me to use logic to discuss what I presume to be background information on this topic, and if I am challenged on a specific statement that I make, I may then provide support for it with sources, but what I've stated above I believe to have not received any specific such challenge. Other users may then dispute that logic or interpretation if they wish, but it's not ok to say that it's OR, because that's not what we're dealing with. Your comments are a bit out of touch with the norms of a Wikipedia discussion. WP:BLUDGEON, I've referenced it a few times. There's nothing strange about me asking you to leave me alone and stop badgering me. Andre🚐 01:04, 26 December 2023 (UTC) The statement "[leave] me alone, you're not going to convince me to change my view with these spurious wikilawyering arguments" in response to a criticism of your argument is clearly a violation of WP:CIVIL and WP:GF, regardless of how you want to spin it. It is a matter of tone. You have clearly demonstrated yourself to lack the ability to communicate with other editors in a professional way, as indicated by your talk page where several other editors have criticized this. As I've already noted, the irony is that your accusation of wikilawyering would be a more apt description of your conduct. You are engaging in obvious original research, mouthing your own opinions which are not sourced and in fact flatly incorrect when compared with the actual international law, as a rationale for excluding sourced material from the article. You're justifying this by claiming that you hadn't made an edit yet and you're on a talk page. You are attempting to skirt the spirit of the WP:OR rule (whose entire point is to ensure that the encyclopedia's content is based on well-sourced WP:RS material) by litigiously hiding behind the fact that this is an RfC on a talk page. In fact, this doesn't really matter, for the reason I mentioned. Promoting decisions based on WP:OR on the talk page is in effect engaging in original research, even if you haven't made an edit proper. Lastly, re: bludgeoning, this is a silly point. I have made far fewer comments on this RfC than many others. The root of the problem here is that you are making incorrect, false, and unsourced claims regarding the definition of apartheid (e.g., that it somehow requires an "underclass"), and personally attacking others when called out on this. JDiala (talk) 04:02, 26 December 2023 (UTC) I'm going to ignore most of your circular and repetitive comment and charitably interpret it as a request for a source for the term "underclass" in apartheid. Myanmar authorities’ system of discriminatory laws and policies that make the Rohingya in Rakhine State a permanent underclass[22] (HRW) this isn't SYNTH, because I'm not adding to the article. I'm using it to illustrate the use of the term which I am interpreting your comment to be challenging due to the use of scare quotes around it. Andre🚐 04:09, 26 December 2023 (UTC) You mentioned a "working underclass" (my emphasis). I should have included this adjective in the above comment, but in any case it was the adjective that you used. The implication here is that that apartheid specifically requires some form of economic subjugation or economic exploitation. This claim is (1) not true, and (2) even if it were true, would not prove the point here, since Israel does in fact exploit Palestinian labour (e.g., Gazan and West Bank labourers). JDiala (talk) 05:27, 26 December 2023 (UTC) I was not implying that apartheid requires economic subjugation. It just so happens that the apartheid in the situation we were describing involves commuting through the border checkpoints. Yes, it is possible to have apartheid without it being a "working" class, but I believe that this is critical to the aspect of the West Bank, it involves labor power relations, and class is fundamentally an economic concept in my conception of it. Regardless, you're going a bit further in my comments than what I said. Apartheid is the existence of an underclass maintained by a policy of discrimination, essentially, in my conception of it, and seemingly described in the above source, and I think applicable to the subset of Palestinians who exist as a class in Israeli society, as opposed to being segregated into a separate walled city with its own institutions. Andre🚐 05:33, 26 December 2023 (UTC) Andrevan is right, you do not understand what WP:OR means. You also do not understand what ad hominem means. Ad hominem is an attack on the person, as opposed to an attack on the person's reasoning. An accusation of wikilawyering is an attack on your reasoning, so it is not ad hominem. Please stop it, you are wrong and off-topic. --Hob Gadling (talk) 07:53, 26 December 2023 (UTC) This is a rather meaningless comment. You are just repeating what he himself said without engaging with my responses refuting his points or elaborating on his points. This contributes exactly nil to the debate. His conduct is clearly ad hominem and a violation of WP:GF when you consider the childish, adversarial tone of his prose ("leave me alone"). Furthermore, as I note, the "wikilawyering" accusation is more aptly applied to him, considering that his argument basically hinges on a tendentious interpretation of WP:OR, where he is somehow interpreting the talk-page exception for WP:OR as a carte blanche to use his own personal, unsourced and frankly incorrect opinions on the interpretation of legal terminology to take a stance in an RfC. Note that WP:WL explicitly disallows "[abiding] by the letter of a policy or guideline while violating its spirit or underlying principles." This is precisely what is going on here with respect to Andrevan and WP:OR, where he is trying to hide behind the fact that this is a talk page to justify him bringing up entirely unsourced content in an RfC. This is no different than an editor claiming in a talk page discussion in, say, Alchemy, that he personally turned granite into gold and so the page should be changed. Would it be so unreasonable to deem that situation a WP:OR violation? And if not, what rule would you suggest citing in that case to criticize said hypothetical editor? JDiala (talk) 10:07, 26 December 2023 (UTC) Collapse bickering. Mathglot (talk) 11:39, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

• No The mention of apartheid in the context of this war is undue and not mentioned in most mainstream sources. Eladkarmel (talk) 12:45, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

  Then that still means there are mainstream sources that mention apartheid. Just not "most". Salmoonlight (talk) 12:48, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

  I think what he is saying is clear - it’s not in most sources and thus undue in the context of the war. Dovidroth (talk) 14:32, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

  Like Iskandar said, if a source says something, we can relay it. It doesn't matter if it's mainstream or not. Please stop dodging Wikipedia policy and being obtuse. Salmoonlight (talk) 14:47, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

  That is contrary to our oath here. Please read WP:NPOV which will demonstrate that we do not present such content. SPECIFICO talk 15:45, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

  Any individual claim X regarding the war which is included in this article will not be included in most published news sources about the war. This is true by definition since this article is by its very nature far more comprehensive than any individual published source. JDiala (talk) 12:40, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

• Yes. Rationales for excluding the allegation are bizarre. Multiple WP:RS sources (including all mainstream human rights organizations) allege Israel is engaged in apartheid. This allegation has been brought up following the start of the war and in relation to the war by innumerable sources [1]. There is no standard that "most" sources need to specifically mention apartheid in relation to the war for it to be included in the article. This is not a standard used for anything. The vast majority of individual sources will not constitute a comprehensive discussion of the war; it is precisely the job of an encyclopedia entry to synthesize all of these sources. JDiala (talk) 12:31, 25 December 2023 (UTC)
• No. We can by all means describe the nature of the occupation, the activities of the West Bank settlers, the Netanyahu government's enabling of the far right and deprecation of the two-state solution. But labels -- there are many proposed on many CT pages on this site -- always end up like an inkblot that each reader interprets in their own way. And that is the opposite of what good encyclopedic content should achieve. The relevant specific detail is informative. Labeling it apartheid is not. SPECIFICO talk 21:45, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

  Apartheid is not a "label." It is a specific crime with a specific definition under international law which Israel has been accused of. Furthermore, it is not us who are "labelling" it apartheid. The statement is attributed to those making the allegation, not considered a statement of fact. Given the ubiquity of the allegation in WP:RS sources, it seems entirely reasonable to include, provided appropriate balance is given to those who deny the allegation. JDiala (talk) 00:22, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

  @JDiala: i agree. Irtapil (talk) 00:49, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

• Yes, definitely - Include at least some South African sources to support them. Given the current sentiment on the Palestine issue from many South African voices, I think the people who experienced the first named Apartheid would support the comparison. I don't have any specific citation links handy at the moment (and if i open one more tab my browser will collapse), but we definitely should include the South African perspective. Irtapil (talk) 00:49, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

Also, Search just for "apartheid" and restrict to results since 7 October - Any name you give for this war, will be a name only one side uses to refer to this war. But just searching for recent writing about apartheid gives results that are mostly relevant and from a wider range of perspectives. collecting some sources below… Irtapil (talk) 01:21, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

Your conclusion is not valid; see response at your discussion section below. Mathglot (talk) 09:56, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

Yes. It is not an opinion that Israel practices apartheid in the Palestinian territories it occupies, of which Gaza is one. Whether this features frequently and as prominently in newspaper reportage as beheadings, rape, ovening of babies etc or not is neither here nor there. This is not about newspaper coverage but what the best independent, authoritative NGOs mention as background to the present conflict. They are the closest thing we have at the moment for the scholarly sources that in the future will form the basis for a detached, analytical account of this particular moment of the IP conflict. I.e.,

There can be no way to address or resolve the continuing crisis in Israel and Palestine, even after the current hostilities wane, without diagnosing it correctly. The discourse about the way forward needs to be based on the reality on the ground of decades of Israeli repressive rule of Palestinians. Major Israeli, Palestinian and other international human rights groups have found that Israeli authorities are committing apartheid against Palestinians, as has the UN special rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territory and many others. Lama Fakih, Omar Shakir, Does Israel’s Treatment of Palestinians Rise to the Level of Apartheid? The Los Angeles Times 5 December 2023

The injustices and violations that are among the root causes of this violence must be addressed as a matter of urgency. Civilians will continue to pay a heavy price until Israel dismantles its system of apartheid against Palestinians, including ending its illegal blockade on Gaza. Palestinian Armed Groups Must Be Held Accountable for Deliberate Civilian Killings, Abductions and Indiscriminate Attacks, Amnesty International 12 November 2023 Nishidani (talk) 09:04, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

• Yes, sufficient sources exist to support the idea that it's a significant flashpoint in the … background and we only need enough sources to demonstrate that significant mainstream / non-fringe discussion exists per Aquillion. We would not expect to find daily mention of this issue in news articles, since it is inherently a 'background' issue.Pincrete (talk) 12:42, 30 December 2023 (UTC)
• No. Drsruli (talk) 13:30, 1 January 2024 (UTC)
• Yes As I made clear in the "RFCbefore", the original removal by the originator of this RFC was baseless and why I restored it in the first instance, idk why this is even a question, it is sourced and clearly relevant.Selfstudier (talk) 14:29, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

less biased search strategy for apartheid views

Since so many people above are saying "most sources say" based on what Google shows them for what they call the war, I'm attempting a less biased search. Any name you give for this war, will be a name only one side uses to refer to this war.

logged in to Google on the profile I usually use for news etc.

Search just for "apartheid" and restrict to results since 7 October, then just skimming for what is relevant to the war, a bit haphazard, but only ruling out things that don't seem to mention Israel or the war at all. I've not read these in full.

• top relevant hit Israel and apartheid
• Al Jazeera English - "Apartheid South Africa reached a tipping point, Israel will, too" - Suren Pillay - Chair in African Studies at the University of Cape Town
• vox "The argument that Israel practices apartheid, explained" (mostly background aimed at a USA audience)
• Richard Boyd Barrett interviewed by well known Turkish news site Anadolu.
• Al Jazeera English - "US political scientist John Mearsheimer: Israel is choosing ‘apartheid’ or ‘ethnic cleansing’ - John Mearsheimer on Israel’s ‘punishment campaign’ against the civilian population in Palestine."

adding "war" to the search

• Al Jazeera English - "Harvard students blame ‘apartheid regime’ for Israel-Gaza war, alumni react"
• The Jakarta Post - "The flames of Hamas, Israel, apartheid, and Palestine"

Nothing I spotted in the top few really refuted it, except that "alumni react". — Preceding unsigned comment added by Irtapil (talk • contribs) 05:19, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

Irtapil, thanks for your search attempt. Unfortunately, this is a textbook case of cherry-picking; that is, you searched for the term which you wish to prove as naturally occurring in articles about the topic. This completely invalidates your search, and your results are worthless for determining the outcome of the Rfc. The volume of articles about the 2023 Israel–Hamas war is so large, that you can find pretty much whatever term you want if you search for it, whether it's apartheid, or something else. By the same reasoning you gave here, someone might say that we should add '"New Jersey" to the lead, as I (falsely) "proved" in this comment above. Please redo your search using unbiased query terms without the term apartheid in it, and show your work so others may respond. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 09:51, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

There is no standard that a particular claim needs to be in a sizeable chunk of articles for it to be included, as I have discussed at ample length elsewhere. Any individual claim X about the war will not be in many articles about the war. This is simply the nature of current events. Individual news story are inherently not exhaustive. It is not WP:CHERRYPICKING as that specifically refers to the exclusion of contradictory information. However, the sentence we have on apartheid in this article in fact discusses the contradictory view. JDiala (talk) 00:16, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

There certainly is a standard that a particular claim needs to be in a sizeable chunk of articles for it to be included, and it is the policy called WP:DUEWEIGHT; merely claiming the contrary doesn't make the policy go away. Any search query that includes the term apartheid in an attempt to determine whether articles about the 2023 Israel–Hamas war tend to include content about apartheid or not is an extreme form of WP:CHERRYPICKING and completely invalidates any conclusion reached from such a query. If the "contradictory view" is only present in a "tiny minority" of sources then it must be excluded, per policy. In Jimbo's words:

• If a viewpoint is held by an extremely small minority, it does not belong on Wikipedia, regardless of whether it is true, or you can prove it, except perhaps in some ancillary article.

That's quoted at WP:DUE, is part of WP:NPOV (which is policy) and exceptionally among policies, it cannot be overridden by consensus but must be followed. Mathglot (talk) 07:48, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

Google is individualized. It shows you pages which, according to their algorithm, you are likely to click on. When I apply the same search, I get lots of Nelson Mandela stuff. With "war", Israel is mentioned in the 8th hit, without war, in the third (because it talks about South Africa supporting Palestinians and opposing Israel). Google apparently gives you more antisemitic different pages than me for some reason. Please consult WP:GOOGLE to find more reasons why your reasoning is invalid. --Hob Gadling (talk) 09:56, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

That antisemitism line is very close to a PA; might want to strike it. AryKun (talk) 19:47, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

OK. I could not find a good euphemism without being dishonest, so I used "different". --Hob Gadling (talk) 13:21, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

refs

References

Discussion (apartheid)

In response to Sameboat's question above about providing a policy basis for using top Google results as methodology: Policy generally does not specify methodology, it specifies goals, such as mentioned by WP:DUEWEIGHT (part of our WP:Neutral point of view policy, which is one of the Five Pillars of Wikipedia, and cannot be overridden by consensus, such as by the result of an Rfc). NPOV says this:

Neutrality requires that mainspace articles and pages fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in those sources. (emphasis added)

When a niche topic has only twenty-seven sources in total, you can go visit all of them, count them up, and figure out which ones are majority and minority views, and write your article content accordingly. When there are thousands of sources, you cannot do that, and you need some kind of proxy or methodology, that lets you figure out what the majority and minority views are. One such proxy is the results of the ranked search results of an unbiased query to a trusted search engine. If you believe my query was biased, or if you believe that Google is rigging the game and failing to fairly surface results about apartheid for that query for some reason, that would be a valid way to attack my argument. But attacking it based solely on the claims of some other Wikipedia editor unsupported by either policy or data, is unpersuasive. Note that the very next line at WP:DUEWEIGHT is this explanatory note:

The relative prominence of each viewpoint among Wikipedia editors or the general public is irrelevant and should not be considered.

So, you could start by attacking my query, my methodology, or Google search results if you wish to claim that a 100-result survey is not a valid indicator. Even better, would be to come up with a superior methodology yourself, showing that my method was inaccurate, and that your method demonstrates that apartheid is, in fact, part of the majority (or significant minority) content in articles about the topic. But merely claiming this or that without evidence will not affect the result of this Rfc. Mathglot (talk) 21:30, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

An obvious methodological issue with this is the risk of recency bias (see also: WP:RECENTISM). The current war has been ongoing for two months, so news outlets aren't necessarily going to be rehashing every relevant detail, they'll likely assume a level of baseline awareness on the part of readers. Whether you "sort by relevance" or "sort by date", the first 100 results are overwhelmingly, almost entirely from the last week (at least, they were for me when I followed the link); if that was our metric, the article would be dominated by the IDF's execution of three hostages, Lloyd Austin's visit to Israel, the upcoming UNSC vote, etc. Our content is qualitatively different than a news article; it has to be enduring in a way that news stories don't, necessarily.

Another methodological issue is the phrasing of your search. For example, by searching for the "2023 Israel-Hamas war" you may be excluding or lowering the ranking of news outlets that use other names, such as Israel-Gaza War.

A third question is geographic situation. Depending on your Google preferences, the result may be skewed toward outlets from a certain region (e.g. a noticeable proportion of my results were from Canadian outlets, even though I followed the link you posted). I also got a large amount of coverage from Israeli sources (particularly JPost and ToI), which raises its own issues.

A fourth issue is the fact that aggregated Google News results don't filter for reliability, which is a core policy. So I'm getting Fox News stories, blogs and opinion pieces, etc., which are irrelevant to this discussion.

A fifth issue is depth of review. You say that you reviewed the search abstract, which is (somewhat, but not really) equivalent to the lead of a wiki article; but we're not talking about putting apartheid in the lead of this article, we're talking about including it further down.

So there are a lot of methodological issues arising from this approach; I've never seen this method used to determine notability or due weight. WillowCity^(talk) 00:03, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

In essence, the approach of relying on the "top Google search result" lacks credibility in determining due weight. This is due to the inherent bias in Google's algorithm, influenced significantly by the user's IP or search history. It's regrettable that seeking clarity on your methodology is interpreted as an "attack." (But attacking it based solely on the claims of some other Wikipedia editor unsupported by either policy or data, is unpersuasive.) If you believe your methodology deserves recognition on Wikipedia, consider gaining consensus from the community, perhaps through avenues like WP:Village Pump/Policy. Currently, your approach seems to conflict with information from reliable sources, as highlighted by user:Vice regent. We shouldn't compromise our content based on Google's search results, but we can still use Google when specifically seeking information from reliable sources. -- Sameboat - 同舟 (talk · contri.) 00:35, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

As additional reading, please take a look at Wikipedia:Search engine test. While not a formal policy or guideline, it provides an in-depth guidance of the appropriate way to use search engines while maintaining neutrality when editing Wikipedia. -- Sameboat - 同舟 (talk · contri.) 03:35, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

Show me the data that supports your view. I see a lot of pointing out *possible* issues (which I respond to individually below) but nothing concrete to really respond to. Regarding recency, WP:RECENTISM is an essay, but I'll respond anyway. There are issues with recency to be aware of, and WP:RSBREAKING (guideline) does warn about the dangers of breaking news:

Wikipedia is not a newspaper and it does not need to go into all details of a current event in real time. It is better to wait a day or two after an event before adding details to the encyclopedia

One way to deal with that is to use a custom time search to build in specific dates and avoid the "breaking" syndrome, so I redid the query restricting results to articles from 14 December or earlier; you can find the results of that search here. (These results shouldn't change too much, even if you click again a few days or a week or two later.) I didn't see a single reference to apartheid in the titles or abstracts of the first 100 web results (not just news results) prior to 14 December. The guideline section WP:AGEMATTERS says:

Sources of any age may be prone to recentism, and this needs to be balanced out by careful editing.

so that needs to be kept in mind, as well. There may be a recentism issue, but if there is, it hasn't been demonstrated.

The point about other wording such as Israel-Gaza War is a valid one, and that (and other phrasing) should definitely be looked at, to try to get a fuller picture of what the majority and minority views are. The pre-14 December web search results for Israel-Gaza War are here, and there are no occurrences of apartheid in the top 100 results. The top ten are: NYT, BBC, Al Jazeera, The Nation, CNN, CNBC, WSJ, CNN, RAND, AP, and checking the full text of those ten, apartheid is found in The Nation, and the BBC article. I looked at #11-20 (Brookings–CPJ) and it didn't occur in any of those. (#18 was a video, I only checked the text and did not listen to the audio.) I did not check the full text of the remaining 80 results, only the title/abstract, where it did not appear.

As far as geographic influence on results, you can mitigate that somewhat by stripping query params "search location" (&gl=) or the "search region" (&uule=) if it appears in the url in your address bar and my query urls are stripped to the bone. (WP:Search engine test is okay as far as it goes, but it doesn't go very far; in particular, it fails to mention any of Google's proprietary url query params, including either the search location or the search region; that's a pretty big gap for an article supposedly about searching Google.) Avoiding those params doesn't stop Google from using your IP to surmise your location, but there are web sites or browser extensions you can use that that alter your apparent location. I tried the same query from Doha, Qatar and just eyeballing the results, I didn't notice any major difference; I got the same mix of websites as I did without specifying a location, although I did not try to match them up one-to-one down the whole list of results, and if you felt like trying that to see if there are some subtle differences I didn't notice, I'd be interested to hear what you find out.

It's fine to challenge results and I appreciate your comments which inspired a new set of refined queries that appear to reinforce the same result as the earlier query, but if you merely criticize without offering your own data that support your vote, it all just seems very theoretical. Mathglot (talk) 06:00, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

I believe the crux of the matter is not the adjustment of search parameters to refine Google search results but the use of the "top 100 results" as a justification to exclude a point of view readily found in reliable sources within the subject's time frame. With all due respect, it appears you are introducing a new rule. The burden of proof lies on your side to persuade the greater community (beyond participants of this article) to accept such an evidently flawed method for determining what is due and what is not. -- Sameboat - 同舟 (talk · contri.) 06:28, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

I have no wish to exclude anything, and I am perfectly indifferent to how this Rfc turns out, either with, or without apartheid in it, as long as whichever way it goes follows Wikipedia policies and guidelines. I've presented evidence that the term appears to be sufficiently rare to meet the use of the phrase "tiny minority" at WP:DUE (policy), which says that

Generally, the views of tiny minorities should not be included at all,

and your conception of who has the onus of providing evidence is backwards: in fact, the WP:ONUS (policy) is on the person who wishes to include information, not the reverse. Nobody cares what you or I believe, our opinions are unimportant; it's about Wikipedia policy, and supporting evidence. I've presented the governing policy links and quotes, and shown to the best of my ability how the unbiased results of several queries pertain to them, especially WP:DUEWEIGHT. I have no wish to recycle previous comments or to comment further unless some actual evidence is brought to bear. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 08:50, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

To begin with, calling the apartheid argument as "undue" (or "minorities view") seems to be more of a personal opinion, supported only by a poorly formulated method. If you maintain that the sources presented by Vice Regent are inadequate, it's fine, and you're entitled to your own perspective. However, relying on search engine results is not a suitable method for determining due weight. If you find it repetitive, we can pause and await the judgment of a reputable, uninvolved editor to conclude this RFC. -- Sameboat - 同舟 (talk · contri.) 10:27, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

RfC on sexual violence in lead section

Should the lead section contain a few sentences concerning the sexual violence during the Hamas attacks of Oct. 7, 2023? ' If so, should the Hamas denial be included? Option A would be to include a few sentences with no denial. Option B include with a denial. Option C do not include. Coretheapple (talk) 04:48, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

Can you give example sources for "the Hamas denial"? I saw one interview, but I am not sure if what I saw is what you have in mind. Irtapil (talk) 08:39, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

I agree including it as it has been a contentious topic that has received notability. Linkin Prankster (talk) 04:42, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

Warning for the closer re: canvassing: ArbCom has been presented with evidence that this RfC has been canvassed by those asking for proxy edits to promote a pro-Israel point of view. While I am not personally aware of the nature or extent of the evidence, or the scale of canvassing, the closer should apply WP:NOTAVOTE with particular care. WillowCity^(talk) 22:39, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

Survey 2

• Option A, Failing to include the sexual violence in the lead would violate WP:LEADl and WP:NPOV as well as WP:NOTCENSORED.There are 45 million hits when you google "Hamas" and "rape" (without quotes), 15,300 in news. USA Today two days ago: Title: 'We know they were raped in Hamas captivity': Chilling details of what hostages faced"[23] It is very much in the forefront of news coverage in reliable sources, and the only question is whether to include the Hamas denial, which is cursory and which I believe is barred in the lead by WP:FALSEBALANCE While it is important to account for all significant viewpoints on any topic, Wikipedia policy does not state or imply that every minority view, fringe theory, or extraordinary claim needs to be presented along with commonly accepted mainstream scholarship as if they were of equal validity. Note that the denial is in the body of the article, in the relevant subsection.'

One point re the denial that needs to be stressed. Every single thing in the lead that is adverse to Israel, without exception, is not followed by a response or denial from Israel, even though Israel has indeed responded to or denied every single element of the lead. Putting in the perfunctory Hamas response to the rapes, and only that response out of everything else in the lead, would be unbalanced and not neutral. Coretheapple (talk) 04:47, 23 December 2023 (UTC) second paragraph added. Coretheapple (talk) 17:49, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

Could you list a couple of these 'everything' please. NadVolum (talk) 00:03, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

There are 540,000,000 results for "flat earth" with no quotes. The claims are more credible than that, I'm just saying I don't think those figures prove much by themselves. Irtapil (talk) 00:31, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

• Option A, will accept B. I do not think the denial is helpful, per WP:MANDY, but if it will help this pass I will accept that compromise. Andre🚐 04:52, 23 December 2023 (UTC)
• Option C would accept B as well, but A is a non-starter to me. The 45 million general google hits are completely irrelevant, as we arent going to start counting random blogs and twitter accounts as reliable sources all of a sudden. The USA Today article is relevant in that it reports The Israeli military official said that, just as authorities know that many women were sexually assaulted during the Supernova music festival and at their homes on Oct. 7, "we know they were raped in Hamas captivity.", somehow presented as though the USA Today is undersigning that claim from an Israeli military official in the opening comment here, but it does not. The USA Today article also includes Despite this evidence, Hamas has consistently denied accusations it used sexual violence on Oct. 7. It has claimed the allegations are part of an attempt by Israel to distract from its mass killings of civilians in Gaza. International human rights groups waited two months before finally condemning the sexual violence. Nearly all the sources that include any accusation of rape includes the denial by Hamas as well, if it is to be included it has to include the denial per NPOV. But why should it not be included? Because the rape charges are almost entirely focused on the 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel, and the sourcing here in relation to the overall war does not show that it is a prominent controversy for this subject and not the child article on the attack. There are 16,400 news results for "sexual assault" "hamas", 14,800 for "rape" "hamas" (many overlapping), nearly all of them in the context of coverage of the 7 October attacks It pales in comparison to say coverage of the UN Security Council and the vetoes (114k news results for "security council" "hamas" "gaza" "israel" "2023"). Or to "starvation" "hamas" "gaza" "israel" with 78,400 news results. "genocide" "gaza" "israel" "2023" gets 25,900 news results. For the overall topic, this just does not have the weight in coverage to merit inclusion in the lead. For the 7 October attacks? Yes, of course it does. But for the war that is entering its 11th week and not limited to one day in October, this is not a prominent controversy to be included in the lead. nableezy - 05:14, 23 December 2023 (UTC)
• C. The initial reports, endlessly recycled since, were extremely confused, internally contradictory, and endlessly touted despite numerous corrections, or dropping off the radar of serious reportage, over time. We still don't appear to know if the rape incidents reported reflect a Hamas strategy, are attributable to other militant groups, or the general flux of indiscriminate groups ranging over the landscape and wreaking violence. A large number of similar, specific reports about burning, decapitating, ovening babies etc., are now viewed sceptically, and until we have specific forensic evidence of the scale or scope of these reported crimes, any statement formulated to assert, as was done from the outset in Israeli news reports, that this was a systematic aspect of the 4 hour Hamas onslaught on the border communities, will reflect a partisan claim, not an ascertained fact. Nishidani (talk) 07:00, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

  This dismissive rejection of overwhelming evidence and testimony comes disappointingly close to the kind of sexual violence denialism that has been deprecated and rejected worldwide over the past few decades. SPECIFICO talk 16:02, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

  This skepticism is warranted. Israelis have already been caught lying about the details of October 7th. The most notable example is the 40 beheaded babies story. JDiala (talk) 11:36, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

• Option C: this war inside Gaza has been going on for 2 and a half months, the 7/10 attack last several hours. Iennes (talk) 07:12, 23 December 2023 (UTC

  The duration of these events is irrelevant to our content policy. It's also false that the sexual violence occurred only on the first day.

  The nature of the initial attack and the ongoing treatment of the hostages has received ongoing coverage in RS, and the coverage is increasing as new investigations reveal the extent of the conduct. It also has been cited as enabling Netanyahu's refusal to moderate the intensity of Israel's counterattack.

  Pearl Harbor/WW2, Archduke assassinationi/WW1, the Gulf of Tonkin, the Boston Tea Party, etc. were all discrete events the significance of which is not diminished by their brevity. We are continuing to see daily coverage, testimony and forensic evidence, and no credible information to the contrary. SPECIFICO talk 15:56, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

  You dont need to badger people and make this an unreadable mess; if you want to discuss somebody's vote do it in the discussion section where they may ignore you at their leisure. nableezy - 16:12, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

  Pearl Harbour and Archduke were precipitators of a large conflict; the sparks which ignited a fire. They are not really comparable to a handful of alleged excesses that occurred in a military invasion, but which otherwise had no further reaching consequences. JDiala (talk) 05:47, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

• Option C. This is a WP:BALASP issue and a matter of WP:DUE. Option A (including "a few sentences") is, in addition to violating NPOV and failing to follow reliable sources (by omitting the denial), totally excessive. The Israeli captives have been a larger story in relation to the war as a whole, and they have a single sentence, which is appropriate; an (as yet unconfirmed and strenuously denied) allegation of something that happened on a single day in the course of an eleven-week war should not be given more prominence. As well, as a matter of BALASP, highlighting these allegations skews the POV of the lead. I don’t want to speculate about anyone’s intent, but I get the feeling that highlighting the events of October 7 is a way to undercut the more prominent aspects of the war as a whole, namely, Israeli atrocities and the humanitarian situation in Gaza. In effect, “well, Hamas also did bad things”. But we have a litany of articles about that: War crimes in the 2023 Israel–Hamas war; Sexual and gender-based violence in the 7 October attack on Israel; 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel; articles on individual October 7 attacks. This article is about the entire war. It is not just about October 7. The bottom line is that when news stories about the October 7 attack refer to sexual violence, they include attribution of the claims, and they include Hamas denials. Overwhelmingly, if not exclusively. We can’t independently weigh the evidence, determine it’s credible, and then depart from RS by failing to include attributions and denials. WillowCity^(talk) 13:44, 23 December 2023 (UTC)
• Option A The nature and ferocity of the 10/7 attack was the predicate for the Netanyahu government's unprecedented response. The rapes and sexual mutilations have received broad ongoing coverage and increasing investigations and condemnation. No RS treats any denials as serious or credible, so MANDY applies. If mention is to be made of denials, as in option B, we would also need to convey that those denials are not taken seriously and are themselves widely condemned. But that would be excessive detail for the lead. Note that WP is not a newspaper and the fact that the press initially (but now much less frequently} mentions Hamas' denials does not tell us what we must convey as an encyclopedia. SPECIFICO talk 16:17, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

  For Israeli atrocities, we generally mention Israeli denials even when they are not credible, eg lead of Shireen Abu Akleh.VR _talk 00:38, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

  It is factually incorrect that the press currently less frequently mentions Hamas' denials. The recent NYT investigation regarding this explicitly noted Hamas' denials in the article. Furthermore, it is not unusual to include denials of crimes in the lead even when those crimes are generally accepted to be true, especially when said crimes are done by state or quasi-state actors like Hamas. The Armenian Genocide is an example of this. We explicitly discuss Turkish denial in the lead. JDiala (talk) 11:34, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

• Option C. Lacking weight for the topic of this article.Crampcomes (talk) 16:36, 23 December 2023 (UTC)
• Option A. This is important to understanding how Hamas precipitated the war. Denials are not credible and not worth including. Far more important than the humanitarian situation in Gaza, which was Hamas's desired outcome resulting from the atrocities committed to provoke the war. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 18:10, 23 December 2023 (UTC)
• C. but B would be acceptable. The allegations are absolutely a huge flashpoint in coverage of the war, but every RS article I read includes the denials alongside the accusations. A just doesn't make sense from a WP:DUE standpoint. CarmenEsparzaAmoux (talk) 18:31, 23 December 2023 (UTC)
• Option A. I don't think the denials should be mentioned, considering that they are given very brief treatment by RS. However I don't see much harm in mentioning them briefly (Option B). Alaexis_¿question? 18:48, 23 December 2023 (UTC)
• C It can be treated a major part of the 7 October attack but it is a very minor part of the war and that's what this article is about. The lead is already a bit stuffed. NadVolum (talk) 20:29, 23 December 2023 (UTC)
• Option B currently, but am fine changing to Option A if somebody shows that a plurality of reliable sources don't include the denial. It seems like enough do for it to warrant a brief mention. I am opposed to option C; I don't find the arguments in favor of it compelling. We have an article on the topic for a reason; there's an articles worth of sources about it. Enough to warrant a mention in the lede. Polite reminder as well to assume good faith and not to speculate about the intent of editors, don't think that's going to be helpful. Chuckstablers (talk) 04:23, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

  I would like to note that while Hamas denies allegations of sexual assault or mutilation committed by members of its armed wing, it does not deny such acts performed by others who participated in the attack. Therefore, this is not an actual denial of the fact that sexual violence has indeed taken place during the attack. Marokwitz (talk) 09:03, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

• Option A. Including the denial by Hamas would be a form of WP:FALSEBALANCE. There is clear, dated, evidence of the sexual violence so mentioning the denials would create a false sense of ambiguity. If people do indeed think that there's enough uncertainty to include the denials then I would be in favor of Option C as that means that it's a he-says she-says situation that takes away from the main point of the conflict. Ergzay (talk) 05:12, 24 December 2023 (UTC)
• Option A per Hawkeye7. The war began with Hamas atrocities that shocked the world and traumatized Israel, and the Hamas denials lack credibility and inclusion would be WP:FALSEBALANCE. We don't include Israeli denials in the lead as also observed above. Figureofnine (talk • contribs) 14:34, 24 December 2023 (UTC)
• Option A. This has clearly received significant coverage in Western media. Recent articles in American, British and Australian reliable news outlets, for example. Sources tend to mention the Hamas denial briefly and only after the allegations have been made in full over several paragraphs, so I think we should keep the denial out of the lead. 𝕱𝖎𝖈𝖆𝖎𝖆 (talk) 15:59, 24 December 2023 (UTC)
• Option C. The October 7 attack and kidnapping are the events that triggered the current invasion in Gaza. However, the rape accusations have no bearing on Israel's decision for this specific military operation. Including them is more likely to serve Israel's propaganda purposes (false consciousness) than an encyclopedic one. -- Sameboat - 同舟 (talk · contri.) 01:36, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

  (Supplementary comment after someone cited the New York Times article "Screams Without Words" in this discussion.) The NYT paywalled "Screams Without Words" article fails to provide justification for including the rape allegations in the article's lead. Typically, such details belong in an article about the terror attack article itself, not in the article covering the military retaliation that follows. Even for proven (not alleged) systemic sexual misconduct during war, these instances are rarely highlighted in the lead, at least I can't find any instance besides this article. Moreover, the October 7 rape allegations, which happened only in 1 day instead of during this war, only surfaced in November 2023, after northern Gaza had already been heavily bombarded by the IDF. Hence, it's unlikely that the rape allegation influenced Netanyahu's decision to attack Gaza, or "completely eradicate Hamas". While I hesitate to delve into the details of the NYT's "Screams Without Words" article, a brief review indicates a lack of concrete evidence. The article lacks testimonies from the allegedly sexually assaulted survivors, and all Israelis killed in the October 7 attack were hastily buried without autopsy. The allegations heavily rely on witnesses (e.g. "Sapir") testimonies and videos which don't show the actual process of sexual assault, but its "aftermath". All in all, supporters are trying to make a precedent over something lacking hard evidence but being politicized and weaponized. -- Sameboat - 同舟 (talk · contri.) 14:07, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

  @Sameboat: Why would you separate the first attacks? Or do you just mean that's where the detail belongs instead of the mean page? Irtapil (talk) 19:01, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

  @Irtapil: I believe my previous comment is quite clear: The rape allegations were not the basis for Israel initiating this full-scale invasion of Gaza; rather, it was the killing and kidnapping incidents. As far as I can see, no reliable sources directly connect the rape allegations to Israel's military retaliation, not even NYT's Screams Without Words.^[24] Instead, these sources primarily focus on the October 7 attack, including Hamas' denial and claim that the allegations serve as a distraction from Israel's war crimes,^Guardian and that wouldn't justify option A which rejects Hamas' denial in the lead. If the rape allegations were to be proven true, that would be very disturbing. However, even if one could demonstrate systemic sexual misconduct during Israel's invasion, it would still be extraordinary to include such details in the lead of a war article, regardless of the side implicated in the alleged crime. The exclusion of sexual misconduct (e.g. comfort woman in Second Sino-Japanese War) from the lead aligns with Wikipedia's standard format for war articles. -- Sameboat - 同舟 (talk · contri.) 02:06, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

  @Sameboat

  I wrote this earlier but it didn't send.

  I think the rape narrative is central to this war because of the way it is being used to justify a genocide.

  As far a I know there is stronger evidence of more widespread rapes in Ukraine? But they are less relevant to that conflict, because it hasn't become the "We must destroy them because!"

  Arguably, we shouldn't amplify the Israeli propaganda narrative, but I don't think not mentioning it helps? We definitely shouldn't call the initial attacks article "Hamas Rape spree in Israel" or such, but it is a prominent issue.

  Though I have possibly just talked myself into "not in the lead" of the main article maybe.

  Irtapil (talk) 19:51, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

  @Irtapil: I think the rape narrative is central to this war because of the way it is being used to justify a genocide. I would like you to cite at least one reliable source which directly use the rape narrative to justify anything related to Gaza's humanitarian crisis. If your goal is to ridicule Israel's petty excuses to collectively punish and expel Gazan Palestinians, mentioning the rape allegations in the lead doesn't help at all, but ruins the balance of the article. -- Sameboat - 同舟 (talk · contri.) 09:38, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

• Option C as information that is currently both poorly verified and largely tangential to the narrative of the war as a whole, which is the topic. These claims are merely one subset of atrocity claim under investigation and do not require detailing in the lead. Much emphasis was placed by Israel on this material after the renewal of violence in Gaza, but this POV emphasis does not make it of overall due weight emphasis as lead detail: on the contrary, it might violate NPOV to do so. Option B would likewise be preferable to Option A in asserting a modicum of balance, but both are less preferable overall as undue in terms of overall weight considerations. Iskandar323 (talk) 01:52, 25 December 2023 (UTC)
• Option A. Those people are Islamists and in favor of forcing women to wear hijabs, because they believe that men cannot be held responsible for their behaviour when they see unveiled women. It would be very inconsistent of them to abduct unveiled women and not rape them, so the accusations are obviously true. Given the coverage, it also belongs in the lead. --Hob Gadling (talk) 04:48, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

  Fortunately, your personal analysis is entirely irrelevant here. Zero^talk 07:43, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

• Option A. Exceedingly well covered topic. And including Hamas's denial would be WP:FALSEBALANCE. As per Marokwitz below, we should try to use language similar to that of the Guardian. Dovidroth (talk) 07:51, 25 December 2023 (UTC)
• Option A. Widely covered by WP:RS, Major controversies must be prominently featured in the lead section as per Wikipedia's guidelines (WP:LEDE). I oppose option B for the following reason: The denial of sexual violence in this context has become a fringe view, especially in light of substantial and reliable accounts that have surfaced. For example, according to The Guardian:

  Several incidents of sexual assault and rape from 7 October have been documented by Hamas body camera footage, CCTV, material uploaded to social media, and photographs and videos taken by civilians and first responders, according to several people involved in analysing the footage. Survivor and witness testimonies, many from the Supernova rave, describe seeing women being raped before they were shot.

The language used in the lead could be similar to the one used by the Guardian, that is, attributing the evidence to survivors, witness testimonies and forensic staff.

This evidence has resulted in UN Women's explicit condemnation of the sexual violence that occurred. Hamas may deny that its fighters carried out sexual violence, but it is a fact that not only Hamas fighters participated in the attack, therefore this denial is meaningless and misleading.

Furthermore, it is imperative to recognize that denying or downplaying these heinous acts is not only factually incorrect but also morally reprehensible. Such denial would be a profound insult to the female victims, akin to silencing their voices and negating their traumatic experiences. Applying a WP:FALSEBALANCE between the victims and perpetrators in this context not only undermines the veracity of the reported events but also perpetuates a harmful narrative that could further victimize the victims. Marokwitz (talk) 08:51, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

• Option C - Per Nableezy and Willowcity. TrangaBellam (talk) 11:23, 25 December 2023 (UTC)
• Option C Without commenting on the sourcing: we have a separate article for the October 7th attacks. Details about the October 7th attacks go in the lead of that article, not this one. Loki (talk) 15:42, 25 December 2023 (UTC)
• Option C as these are WP:UNDUE for the lead of this article, but option B for 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel as they are WP:DUE there. Many Israeli actions have received more RS coverage, as nableezy points out, but can't be given the space they deserve because of concerns surrounding length. For example, I find that gaza starvation has 95,000 results, or 8x more than hamas rape which is 12,000 results for me. Will we give 8x more sentences to the starvation of Gazans in the lead as we give to the sexual assault claims? Various other topics not mentioned in the lead all get more news hits than the rape allegations: shifa = 17,000, "indonesian hospital" gaza = 16,000, cancer gaza = 119,000 (the plight of cancer patients amidst the war) etc.VR _talk 00:35, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

  I've got only 13,000 results for Gaza starvation, which would be about the same. Not sure why the discrepancy. If you switch over to plain google results, hamas rape has about 10m more results than Gaza starvation. [00:40, 26 December 2023 (UTC)] I also have different results for your other links. Same number for Shifa, but for Indonesian hospital Gaza, only 6800. For cancer Gaza I have the same high number, but I suspect that not all of those results are about this. Andre🚐 00:41, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

• Option A sexual violence by Hamas has been condemned by dozens of leaders, senators, figures etc. A bunch of international media outlets have reported on it, and gotten testimonies. Prosecution already has collected a substantial amount of evidence over the past several months. There is footage, some of it spread by Hamas itself of women bloodied in between their legs and other things. It would be a complete wp:falsebalance to give equal weight to Hamas denial of the actions.
  I do think the body should include a denial. However the lead should be option A. Homerethegreat (talk) 06:29, 26 December 2023 (UTC)
• Option A. Mentioning the topic is especially important because the very extreme violence (not just sexual) of October 7 is what later on shaped the goals, length and the extent of the campaign in Gaza. It is also important in order to understand why the 2023 Gaza War was so different than the ones in 2008, 2012, 2014 and 2021. Option B might have sufficed but due to the sheer amount of WP:RS, I think this is just WP:FALSEBALANCE. FoodforLLMs (talk) 12:31, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

  In other words, "mentioning the topic is especially important because we need the atrocity propaganda to justify an ongoing genocide." Unfortunately for you, Wikipedia is not the propaganda arm of the Israeli government. JDiala (talk) 00:33, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

  WP:NOTAFORUM, WP:AGF please argue policy rather than making personal attacks. Drsmoo (talk) 02:17, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

  Please tone down your sarcasm and accusations, I think it's highly uncalled for. To address the substance, We are supposed to present the facts to the reader and let them formulate a narrative. For example, just as you need to see the Palestinian casualty figure to understand condemnations of Israeli actions, you need to see details of the Oct 7 attack to understand support for Israeli actions. And I think our job is to show these facts. --FoodforLLMs (talk) 16:56, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

• Option A absolutely. It would be such a gross violation of WP:NPOV to not include it in the lead. EytanMelech (talk) 19:37, 26 December 2023 (UTC)
• Option C as UNDUE and unreliably sourced. I would accept Option B. The Zionist entity has engaged in a huge information war, despite that many of their wild claims have been found to be fabrications. All reliable sources have chosen to couch reports of sexual violence by attributing it to Zionist and unreliable sources like the IOF. It would be a violation of all Wikipedia's policies and guidelines to include this likely false claim in wikivoice in the lead of this article, let alone without the denial from Palestinians. --- C&C (Coffeeandcrumbs) 17:28, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

  “All reliable sources have chosen to couch reports of sexual violence by attributing it to Zionist and unreliable sources like the IOF.”

  What does attributing it to Zionist mean? Are you referring to Israeli first responders? Could you rephrase?

  https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-67629181

  ”The BBC has seen and heard evidence of rape, sexual violence and mutilation of women during the 7 October Hamas attacks.”

  https://www.france24.com/en/tv-shows/focus/20231213-evidence-mounts-of-sexual-crimes-perpetrated-by-hamas-during-oct-7-attack-in-israel

  “Two months after the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel, evidence is mounting of the sexual violence perpetrated by Hamas that day. Prosecutors have little doubt that women were raped, tortured and some of their dead bodies mutilated. Israeli police, who opened a probe in mid-November, say they have gathered more than 1,500 testimonies from witnesses and first responders.” Drsmoo (talk) 02:08, 28 December 2023 (UTC) Edit at 02:28, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

  The BBC is at this stage the government mouthpiece of an at least partly involved global power running reconnaissance missions over Gaza from Cyprus. As in all cases, we should be seeking reliable, secondary sources that are as independent as possible. As for the France 24 piece, that says "prosecutors" (presumably Israeli prosecutors) are confident of X - now prosecutors are specifically in the business of making a strong case rather than neutrally and impartially reflecting the facts. Their counterpart would be the defense, which isn't reflected here (if this is in reference to the ICC filing, then we may be waiting some while). In the same breath, the same source notes that the UN investigation is evidently ongoing - so we are still awaiting impartial voices on proceedings. Iskandar323 (talk) 12:32, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

  Those are both reliable secondary independent sources, that’s why we use them. Please don’t misrepresent sources, France24 wrote “evidence is mounting of the sexual violence perpetrated by Hamas that day”. Along with the myriad of others that also report Hamas’ murderous rape spree.

  The argument by some editors that we should ignore reliable sources is ridiculous. The argument that we should ignore Israeli civilians and human rights organizations because they are Israeli is unacceptable on Wikipedia. Drsmoo (talk) 13:54, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

  Also, the way a reliable source like the BBC turns into a government mouthpiece of an at least partly involved global power because it does not toe a pro-Hamas party line is clearly motivated reasoning. No difference to Trump calling those outlets that contradict him "fake news". --Hob Gadling (talk) 14:09, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

  They’re not misrepresenting anything. BBC (British state media) is saying it’s “seen evidence” which is not the same as saying that something occurred. If a source said they’d “seen evidence” that Israel was deliberately targeting civilians, would you want it included in the lead that Israel is targeting civilians? And would you agree that the statement of every Palestinian civilian or human rights organization is lead-worthy?

  I don’t think people are suggesting they be ignored outright, they belong in the body with appropriate attribution and context. But these accounts are generally filtered through Israeli government sources (prosecutors, police, the military) who have a vested interest in spin-doctoring evidence to fit the narrative of a belligerent to the conflict (one who famously lacks credibility). For example, who knows what kind of editing the video shown to BBC was subject to? How reliable was the witnesses’ perception, how much do they even remember, are they sincere? These are not issues the BBC opines on. The question is not “are Israeli civilians telling the truth”, the question is “are the reports sufficiently notable, credible and unequivocal to justify including in the lead?” The even more important question is, “do these allegations tell readers anything about the ongoing 12-week war, or would focusing extensively on a single day skew the narrative towards one POV?”

  (also, can we all try to keep the discussion to the discussion section) WillowCity^(talk) 15:27, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

  Using pejorative slurs like Zionist entity isn't an argument and railing against Zionist control of the sources (assuming they're saying all Western sources presented here are Zionist) in this discussion isn't one either. The closer should ignore this !vote since they were asked to elaborate on what a "Zionist source" is and didn't. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 21:35, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

  The repeated assertion by some that Israeli witnesses, first responders, and human rights organizations are not trustworthy due to their nationality is unacceptable.

Currently on the home page of The NY Times - https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/28/world/middleeast/oct-7-attacks-hamas-israel-sexual-violence.html “A Times investigation uncovered new details showing a pattern of rape, mutilation and extreme brutality against women in the attacks on Israel” “A two-month investigation by The Times uncovered painful new details, establishing that the attacks against women were not isolated events but part of a broader pattern of gender-based violence on Oct. 7”Drsmoo (talk) 17:26, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

• Option A, per SPECIFICO, Hawkeye7 and Marokwitz. The cruelty of the 7.10 attack, including the sexual violence, resulted the wide support in Israel to a harsh response. The credibility (or more accurately, the lack of credibility) of the denial should also be considered, as we describe the reality. The denial is indeed a fringe view. I think that option B, if it includes a clarification that the denials are not taken seriously and widely condemned, can also be good, and even give a better perspective, but it will be too long for the lead, so it's better not to write about the denials in the lead at all. פעמי-עליון (talk) 18:37, 26 December 2023 (UTC)
• Option A - (Brought here from WP:RFC/A) Wikipedia is WP:NOTCENSORED and we should include this information (the weight in the media does give it proper DUE weight) and leave out the denial as I do also believe it is "fringe". MaximusEditor (talk) 21:06, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

  You're making a strawman argument, as no one has argued for censoring this, and in fact, many of the Option C !votes specifically point to other places more suitable to mention this. VR _talk 04:03, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

• Option A as per Hawkeye7 and others. With regards, Oleg Y. (talk) 01:56, 27 December 2023 (UTC)
• Option A per Andre. 𝕸𝖗 𝕽𝖊𝖆𝖉𝖎𝖓𝖌 𝕿𝖚𝖗𝖙𝖑𝖊 🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱 ☎️ 📄 02:23, 27 December 2023 (UTC)
• Option C Such details and denials about what happened on the first day of the attack belong to the lede of 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel.Ghazaalch (talk) 05:28, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

• Option C I've been convinced by the argument brought up below by User:WillowCity and User:Sameboat would make Option B give undue weight to sexual violence in contrast to other conflicts. Option A is for me a nonstarter. To include it we would have to adjudicate that Israel's claims are valid, that any rebuttal is invalid, AND that including it is so factual and important that it doesn't even warrant including usual context. I think it would be a flagrant violation of NPOV. Acebulf ^{(talk | contribs)} 17:58, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

  After reading a few rather convincing arguments above from User:Marokwitz, the denial from Hamas referring only to their members, any form of option B would have to be very carefully worded. I'm not sure that option B would make much sense in that light. Acebulf ^{(talk | contribs)} 21:38, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

• Option A' or Option B per Associated Press. “Such accounts given to The Associated Press, along with first assessments by an Israeli rights group, show that sexual assault was part of an atrocities-filled rampage by Hamas and other Gaza militants who killed about 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and took more than 240 hostages that day.” Drsmoo (talk) 18:12, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

Edit: From The NY Times today: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/28/world/middleeast/oct-7-attacks-hamas-israel-sexual-violence.html “A two-month investigation by The Times uncovered painful new details, establishing that the attacks against women were not isolated events but part of a broader pattern of gender-based violence on Oct. 7.

Relying on video footage, photographs, GPS data from mobile phones and interviews with more than 150 people, including witnesses, medical personnel, soldiers and rape counselors, The Times identified at least seven locations where Israeli women and girls appear to have been sexually assaulted or mutilated.” Drsmoo (talk) 17:40, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

• Option C It should absolutely not be discussed in the lead. The Zionist state has demonstrably produced false atrocity propaganda regarding the October 7th resistance operation, like the 40 beheaded babies lie, which incidentally the uncritical Western media has parroted. We thus have reasonable suspicion that these sexual assault allegations are likewise fabricated. The lack of forensic evidence (e.g., semen) or pregnant Israeli women is also eyebrow-raising. I understand that Wikipedia does regard Western media as WP:RS, which I accept and do not contest, so it is reasonable to include the sexual violence claims somewhere in the article. However, I think it is fair for us to exclude it from the lead, given the very real reservations regarding this. JDiala (talk) 00:28, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

  Could you articulate a policy-based reason why we should ignore widespread attestation in the most reliable sources, and why we should ignore eyewitness testimony from Israelis. Your allegation that the evidence of sexual assault is fabricated because it comes from Israelis is not acceptable. Drsmoo (talk) 01:58, 28 December 2023 (UTC) Edit at 02:17, 28 December 2023 (UTC) and 02:28, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

  I never stated we should "ignore" it. I simply asserted it shouldn't be in the lead. Something being reported by a widespread number of sources is a necessary but insufficient reason to be included in a lead. It is also important to note that this legalistic focus on "policies" is contrary to the spirit of Wikipedia see e.g., WP:5P5. It is completely sensible for us, as an encyclopedia, to have a greater degree of scrutiny for an entity known for regularly producing bald-faced lies regarding the events of this war. This doesn't mean eschewing such claims altogether, but merely relegating them to the body of the article rather than the lead. JDiala (talk) 02:44, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

  https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-11-08/ty-article/israeli-police-collect-eyewitness-testimony-of-gang-rape-during-hamas-attack/0000018b-b025-d3c1-a39b-bee5ef400000 Which entity are you referring to, the testimony of eyewitnesses? I don't like putting words into peoples mouths, but your argument seems to be that not only should we ignore the wide array of highly reliable sources, but we should also ignore all Israeli eyewitness accounts, and first-responder accounts, because you think they're untrustworthy. That position would not be valid. Drsmoo (talk) 03:06, 28 December 2023 (UTC) Edit 11 November 2024

• Option C. Came to that decision having read the arguments of those who have already answered. A is out of the question as it's a breach of NPOV in showing bias towards one side when neither side has any credibility as regards truth. B is a "he said she said" option, which in an article based on a broader issue (where a multitude of more widely covered events that have transpired throughout the war do not make the lede) seems excessive/undue to mention. Therefore C seems the most appropriate option as it keeps to substantiated facts without giving undue weight/balance. It's the most dispassionate option. As a side issue (given it has been used as an argument), media outlets (otherwise reputable on other issues) without verified, independent information can't be used to validate claims either, as western ones have historically had a bias one way, while middle eastern ones have had an opposing slant; what's been new about this current episode of the conflict is more of the masses are not being taken in either way, thus have a more independent/unhindered view of what is happening. Messi R9 R10 CR7 Thiago LFC (talk) 01:12, 28 December 2023 (UTC)
• Option B I think it is pretty clear that sexual assault and rape occurred during the initial attack, which is unsurprising since that's how most wars seem to go. What is unclear is the extent of the assaults, which is why most RS still include the Hamas denial; until this is clearer, the Hamas denial of its armed forces not being responsible should also be mentioned.
• Option A. A denial is undue weight for the lede; reliable sources, such as thus extensive NYT report only mention the denials in passing and afford no credulity to them or detailed coverage. Similarly, it would be undue to exclude the tapes from the lede; they are very widely covered and the extent of said coverage is only increasing. BilledMammal (talk) 23:51, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

Option A Yes as the October 7 attack was the core event starting the war, and the brutality of it has been very widely reported so we should report what reliable sources state. The Hamas denial isn't relevant per the aforementioned WP:MANDY. It's also very important to state the course of events as a fact in wiki-voice- often in these articles editors have been adding wording such as "Israel reports that Hamas carried out sexual assaults occurred on October 7" rather than the direct factual wording of "Hamas carried out sexual assaults on October 7". Reliable sources are very clear that the mass sexual assaults did unfortunately happen and the wording needs to reflect this. Chessrat ^{(talk, contributions)} 14:20, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

• Option C. The lead is overdetailed in many places. The article does not explain whether or how the scale of the sexual violence during the October 7 attack factors into Israel's decision-making. Senorangel (talk) 03:57, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

• Option C or B, I wholly endorse arguments of Messi R9 R10 CR7 Thiago LFC and WillowCity. Sexual violence - and particularly organised, weaponised, sexual violence - was a notable feature of the Bosnian war, particularly against Bosniak women, but it isn't mentioned in the lead, nor was the scale of its occurence reliably established at the time. At the present moment, the scale and extent of sexual violence on October 7th is unknown - and largely unknowable - and information about it has been highly weaponised, despite little coming from competent forensic authorities. Editors here are tending to argue that because some 'horror stories' are probably true, then all must be true. Two sad facts are that sexual violence is a normal feature of most wars and that weaponising of atrocity stories is nearly as common. Pincrete (talk) 13:41, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

Option A So many words here for the obvious thing: the evidence is very precise. Legitimizing the denial of the claims of sexual violence of women in this context is against any liberal and feminist thought. The only way to include claims of denial can be in the context of bashing those who deny - similar to mentioning Holocaust denial. Agmonsnir (talk) 18:09, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

See, WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS. Wikipedia is not here to uphold liberal and feminist thought. (For the record, I hold both liberalism and feminism as noble causes). VR _talk 04:05, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

• Option A this best represents the current reliable sources about the brutal attacks. Nemov (talk) 18:57, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

• Option A per Marokwitz. The topic is widely covered by mainstream media, including the thorough examination of The New York Times published lately. It is one of the major controversies related to the attack, and as such it should be mentioned in the lead per WP:LEDE. Hamas denial, as suggested in Option B, is not helpful here, and may be considered fringe view regarding the vast coverage of the sexual violence by so many reliable sources. Noon (talk) 22:23, 30 December 2023 (UTC)
• Option A. It would be a gross failure of WP:NPOV not to include the sexual violence in. Based on the WP:RS it is very clear that the sexual violence isn't some isolated actions but it's clear that it's very related to the conflict at hand. If the RFC is made in October, there are no clear references about rapes, but at this moment we have seen multiple references about the sexual violence - and we can't ignore it. The fact that Hamas saying that "it didn't happen" shouldn't stop us from taking the information from the reliable sources - where all sources agree that it happened. ✠ SunDawn ✠ (contact) 12:50, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

• Option A Drsruli (talk) 13:33, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

• Option A with great obviousness. We do not need the plaintive, WP:MANDYish denials of Hamas, a terrorist organization, over what they did or did not do. A terrorist organization is not a reliable source even for itself. We go by what actual sources say about them. Zaathras (talk) 14:40, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

  @Zaathras very good point. Figureofnine (talk • contribs) 20:20, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

• Leaning option C, oppose option B: This article is about the whole war, and there is a different article for the events of 7 October. It is proper that the lead of the latter should include sexual violence (it does currently). It is also proper that the section of this article on 7 October includes it (it does currently). But I don't think it needs to be in the lead. If it is in the lead, however, there's no reason to create false balance by including a denial by the perpetrators (per WP:MANDY). Although I don't think it should go in the lead, many of the option C arguments above proceed from the conviction that sexual violence didn't happen, which is a deeply problematic assumption given the clear weight of evidence, and I would hope that arguments for C based on that logic be discounted by any closer. BobFromBrockley (talk) 15:58, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

• Option A with a caveat. The lead has a serious problem: it omits even mentioning the atrocities by Hamas in Israel, which were the reason and the casus belli for the war. It was not merely a "surprise attack" as framed in the lead. That should be mentioned in one-two phrases, which would also include the mentioning of sexual crimes by Hamas as the key element of the atrocities. Option "B" is not viable because the denial by Hamas belongs to WP:FRINGE. My very best wishes (talk) 16:12, 6 January 2024 (UTC)
• Option A. This is the reason the war started. Calling it a "surprise attack" is whitewashing. It was one event but without it, the war wouldn't have happened. More specifically, most news articles cover the violent rapes as one of the causative factors. The reliable sources presented here overwhelmingly consider the rapes to a) be important and b) have happened. Denying this would be like including Holocaust denial in the lede to the article on World War 2, like "millions allegedly died in genocides". Comments like Nishidani's boil down to "well reliable sources say that there were mass rapes but I don't think their standard of evidence was high enough". That's not how Wikipedia operates, we are supposed to summarize the consensus of reliable sources and not inject our own burdens of evidence to say the New York Times/BBC/The Guardian didn't do a good enough job. This argument that there's not enough evidence to make these claims would only hold if reliable sources agree that there is not enough evidence. Nableezy touches upon this by citing a single USA Today article that doesn't endorse the Israeli claims (but doesn't deny them either), but Drsmoo, Marokwitz, and Ficaia provide several other sources that do agree that Israelis were raped by Palestinians/Hamas. Nableezy also brings up various counts of news articles to try to rank the importance of various issues. This is the Wikipedia:Search engine test. We don't know how many of those news sources are reliable, the engine miscounts a lot, etc etc. It's not as useful evidence as searching reliable sources such as the NY Times or the BBC which heavily cover the rapes. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 21:12, 6 January 2024 (UTC)
• Option C: This is primarily an Israel claim with no evidence (admitted by Israeli press) like many other extraordinary claims they routinely make. It is due in the article, but it is hardly a notable enough aspect of the conflict to be included in the lede. MarioGom (talk) 13:10, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

Discussion 2

Regarding the completely made up claim that the denials are not taken seriously and are themselves widely condemned and the press initially (but now much less frequently} mentions Hamas' denials, sources to this day include that Hamas denies the accusations of rape, the overwhelming majority of sources that refer to any claims of rape or sexual assault include the denial. The most recent one I am aware of is USA Today writing about the Israeli military saying they know hostages were raped includes the denial. Such a series of unsubstantiated assertions as made in that comment should have evidence provided for it or it should not be taken seriously at all. nableezy - 16:46, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

Yes and the denial is in the body of the article. No one is arguing that the denial should not be in the body of the article, only not in the lead. Every single thing in the lead that is adverse to Israel, without exception, has drawn a response from Israel or a denial. But such denials are not mentioned. Putting in the Hamas denial, and only the Hamas denial, would be unbalanced and not neutral. Coretheapple (talk) 17:54, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

What accusation by Hamas against Israel is included without a response? nableezy - 17:56, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

Nableezy, you keep acting like Hamas and Israel deserve to be treated as 50 50 equal players on every question, and what we do for one hand we must do equally for others. It's not a good model for NPOV or life or justice. Sometimes, one side does something completely out of proportion to what ever happened before. Hamas is a small group with a small quasi-territory that launched an attack against significant odds, alone, with no support, and is basically an international pariah due to the atrocities during that attack, and we don't need to act like it's possible that they didn't happen or that they weren't terrible, or that whatever denials issued by Hamas are credible, unless some credible academic or journalistic source does so. We also shouldn't act like those events didn't precipitate this entire war.

Israel is a large, well-armed, wealthy and powerful state backed by the US, UK, France, Australia, and basically every Western and English speaking powerful country, under quite a bit of scrutiny and being accused of all manner of things from apartheid to genocide, and we should absolutely treat those as complex both-sides type issues inasmuch as there are people debating them who are reliable (though, in my view, the genocide allegation goes too far and is inaccurate). On some issues yes, there's a complex narrative and we must balance the views of Palestinians versus Israelis, each group has separate factions, such as Fatah, or the different Israeli groups that range from Meretz and Labour to Likud to Blue&White to Shas and Yisrael Beteinu. And no, there are not credible allegations that Israelis are raping Palestinians, not like there are of Hamas. So we don't need to act like these things are the same. The victims in the Hamas attack were not soldiers, they were peaceful civilians and in many cases left peace activists. So not every atrocity needs a response. We should simply cover them as the majority of sources do, and not try to both-sides every issue.

The point is to describe in the lead what the majority of yes, Western, yes, English-speaking, sources think are the most pertinent issues. Yes, there have been widespread calls for a ceasefire and widespread reports of indiscriminate civilian deaths in Gaza. We do not try to include Israeli denials of that or whatever weak PR Israeli spokespeople put out about it trying to spin or downplay those massive civilian deaths. Because that wouldn't be credible, and it's not edifying. Andre🚐 09:18, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

As much Hamas is a small group with limited international support, Israel is also a small country with international pariah status by some metrics. What else would one call UN general assembly votes where all but three other countries agree with their position? Both entities have credibility that is in the dirt on the global stage due to the unacceptable aspects of their conduct, and the relative weight and/or credibility of either in any conflict scenario is of equally little weight relative to impartial and independent secondary, reliable sources. Iskandar323 (talk) 02:02, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

You're mostly right except for matters of perspective and a few important aspects that are distorting. Israel is a small country geographically, worldwide. But relative to Gaza, it's quite large. About 60 times as large by land area, a little under 5x as large by population. More importantly, their relative power dynamics. And the 3 other countries are pretty large in terms of that. As far as the UN votes, you're right. Most vote for a ceasefire or to condemn Israeli settlements. My point was about the relative power dynamics at play. Israel is a state and it has to abide by things that states have. Hamas, not so much. Andre🚐 02:11, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

NPOV requires that we feature all significant views; scaling said significance is a trickier matter. My point was that within the context of their globally parochial conflict, the relative weight of Israel/Hamas pales alongside their equal partiality as combatants, and the primary views of either are little more than POV commentary short of validation by independent, secondary analysis. Iskandar323 (talk) 02:23, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

'The victims in the Hamas attack were not soldiers, they were peaceful civilians and in many cases left peace activists.' Sure, so Hamas went and raped peace activists all along the border.

To repeat, we are caught up in the furor of reports from 7-8 Oct of rape, mutilation, beheadings, burning babies. rare later reports tell us forensic doctors and police are sifting through these reports meticulously and exhaustively, but that so far we have no statistical evidence other than an indication from interviews with hostages who have been returned that slightly under 10% reported experiencing some form of sexual molestation.

This is what Hadas Ziv, policy and ethics director for Physicians for Human Rights–Israel stated 10 days ago, guardedly>-

“What we know for sure is that it was more than just one case and it was widespread, in that this happened in more than one location and more than a handful of times. . .What we don’t know and what the police are investigating is whether it was ordered to be done and whether it was systematic.” Sam Mednick New signs emerge of ‘widespread’ sexual crimes by Hamas, as Netanyahu alleges global indifference Associated Press 15 December 2023

That means that we have some sparse facts of sexual violence befalling a number of the several hundred civilians, and extensive allegations that this was systematic and specific to Hamas policy. Not enough for the lead, as yet.Nishidani (talk) 11:54, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

Sometimes, one side does something completely out of proportion to what ever happened before. you mean like displace 2 million people, kill 20,000 in 10 weeks, starve a civilian population? And when you think something goes to far and is innaccurate that means we shouldn’t include it? Genocide accusations have a ton more coverage than rape accusations, but you think one of those should be included unanswered and the other just brushed aside? Oh, thanks for that bit of wisdom then. nableezy - 12:27, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

Well, no. That's happened before, and worse things have happened before. In fact actual genocide has happened before, with 6 million Jews exterminated by Nazis, many LGBT and Romani, etc., or other documented genocides such as the Armenians. As far as the genocide accusations they certainly don't have more coverage or at least not by much, and I haven't seen that source survey. There's also a legal definition of genocide not to mention it's a crime, and we have special treatment for crimes of living people. So, no, it's not the same, it's a false equivalency. The rapes have documentary and photographic evidence. Andre🚐 18:41, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

That happened in Gaza? Was it Hamas? As far as source survey: 25k results for "genocide" "gaza" "israel" "2023" vs 14,800 for "rape" "hamas". Do you hear yourself on not to mention it's a crime, and we have special treatment for crimes of living people. You are saying we cannot accuse Israel of a crime (genocide) because of living people and special rules, but we can accuse Hamas of a crime (rape) because reasons? nableezy - 19:52, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

Because that event has been proven shown more likely true than not"[added as "proven" was inexact/incorrect legallyAndre🚐] by eyewitnesses, documentary evidence, video footage, photographs, and testimony from the witnesses, showing that the event occurred. So to act like it's still in doubt or deny it happened or downplay it is problematic. Whereas genocide has a number of legal elements that haven't been shown. Apartheid, as I said, is defensible, and arguable, and I might agree that it exists in Israel. The West Bank settlers are also violating international law and have been guilty of several illegal and atrocious things. We don't need to dance around them. If there's clear evidence and nobody can really dispute it except for a basic denial, it should be treated as more likely than not if that's what the sources support. Of course, WP:BLPCRIME and WP:NPOV demand balance, but balance isn't, "include the denial of everything that someone/group is accused of." Balance means reading all the sources, balance them out, and distill the mainstream positions in a proportionately accurate way. If 75% or 95% of sources agree and you discount the remaining 5 or 25% for some reason (such as WP:MANDY or a contradiction or the fact that the claimant is a terrorist group with poor credibility on that particular point), that's how I balance it out. WP:FRINGE and WP:BALASP exist to avoid giving too much platforming to ideas that are not mainstream. The idea that the rapes didn't occur is exactly that kind of flat-eartherism in my view. Whether genocide is occurring is debatable at best, but I'd say that the elements aren't there. We don't need to debate that though, because it's a larger topic and doesn't belong on this page. Andre🚐 20:35, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

Im sorry, but youre just making things upexaggerating the evidence and the certainty of the sources. There is no video footage or photographs or documentary evidence, there are eyewitness accounts and there are denials. You can believe the same organizations that made up a baby in the oven or 40 beheaded babies if you want, but please dont misrepresent what the evidence is here. There are no videos, that is not true. And 75-95% of sources do not agree that this happened. Because they dont say it in their own words that it happened, they say who has said it happened and what evidence they have presented for it. They also say who has said it did not happen. You can and others can misrepresent what the sources actually say, but Ive read them and I dont need to just pretend that this misrepresentation is accurate at all. You can say Hamas is a terrorist group with poor credibility, and my response is Israel as a state is an established liar, over decades and in this conflict, and if you want to believe everything they say you can do that, but I dont think that is appropriate for a serious source to accept as fact the claims of a party engaged in active armed conflict and who has provably lied over and over again. And neither do the sources who relay Israeli accusations as Israeli accusations. nableezy - 23:02, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

I've not misrepresented sources. In one photo, a burned body appears to project anguish. In another, a woman lies naked from the waist down, her underwear hanging from her leg. In interviews, first responders haltingly describe finding naked female corpses tied to beds and survivors recount witnessing a gang rape at the music festival...Over the last several weeks, NBC News has reviewed five interrogations of captured Hamas fighters, an Arabic-language document that instructed Hamas how to pronounce “Take off your pants” in Hebrew, six images of naked or partially naked deceased female bodies, seven eyewitness accounts of sexual violence including both rape and mutilation, 11 testimonies of first responders, and two accounts from workers in morgues who handled the bodies of women after they were recovered from the massacre.[25] Andre🚐 23:06, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

Yes, ZAKA, an organization that has been repeatedly found to have manufactured acts of barbarism like burning a baby to death in an oven, has made these reports. Yes, there are eyewitnesses saying they saw rapes. There are no videos of sexual assault or rape, and no photographs of sexual assault or rape. Your own source repeatedly attributes the accusations to Israeli military and government sources. nableezy - 23:10, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

They're photos which are evidence of rape. They're videos of young women being kidnapped, and videos showing the aftermath of rape. Arabic documents telling Hamas how to say "take off my pants." You can argue whether this evidence was "made up" or "manufactured" but the fact remains that you claimed the evidence didn't exist, and that I made it up, which is incivil. No, I read it in NBC News, an apparently reliable source that is not reliable enough for you. Andre🚐 23:12, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

Yes, Im going to believe the military that presented a calendar as a terrorist schedule on what they found. Yes you absolutely made up that there has been proven by eyewitnesses, documentary evidence, video footage, photographs, and testimony from the witnesses, showing that the event occurred. and despite your asking an admin to chastise me for it I have no problem repeating that. There is no video or photographic evidence that has proven rape occured. And no reliable source makes such a claim. They have said that there is a body of evidence that increasingly suggests that it did happen. You are the one claiming that this has been proven by video, and that is false. nableezy - 23:16, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

Fine, substitute the word proven with "substantiated to show it is more likely than not," it's still incivil to say I made it up. You can quibble on the semantics but that's not going to take away the civility violation. You can believe it was all made up. That's your prerogative. But you can't tell me that I am making it up. Andre🚐 23:19, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

If you have to substitute something that completely transforms your statement to resemble the truth then your original statement was not true. If you feel I’ve been uncivil you can discuss that on my talk page or report it. But it doesn’t have anything to do with the article so why don’t we focus on the article here? nableezy - 23:30, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

"There is no video or photographic evidence that has proven rape occured. And no reliable source makes such a claim" - Nableezy

Andre provided you a reliable source saying that they directly saw and reviewed photographic evidence that rape occurred. NBC News is on the reliable source list, so it's a reliable source. They said they saw photographs of naked bodies strongly implying sexual violence happened. They did in fact make such a claim. Unless you're going to try to say that NBC is not a reliable source then what you've said here is obviously false.

"Over the last several weeks, NBC News has reviewed five interrogations of captured Hamas fighters, an Arabic-language document that instructed Hamas how to pronounce “Take off your pants” in Hebrew, six images of naked or partially naked deceased female bodies, seven eyewitness accounts of sexual violence including both rape and mutilation, 11 testimonies of first responders, and two accounts from workers in morgues who handled the bodies of women after they were recovered from the massacre." - NBC news.

I'd just like to hear some type of policy based justification as to why we should ignore this. Do you have an argument from WP:RS or WP:NPOV? If you're going to say that 75-90% of sources conclude that rape did not occur (or more weakly, that they don't conclude that it did occur), then where is your list of sources that you looked at to come to that conclusion? I'm just kind of hesitant to take that at face value given the quote I started this post with. Chuckstablers (talk) 23:55, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

What they say is that this suggests rapes occured, not that it proved it. And there is no video. And no, I have not said sources conclude rapes did not occur, I say they have not yet concluded rapes did occur. And the sources are those like NBC who are still reporting it as an accusation, not a proven fact. nableezy - 23:57, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

There is video evidence; to be clear there is not video evidence of an in-action rape. There is video of young women being kidnapped, such as kidnapping of Noa Argamani. There is video of the interviews as well. See the BBC[26] Video testimony of an eyewitness at the Nova music festival, shown to journalists by Israeli police, detailed the gang rape, mutilation and execution of one victim. Videos of naked and bloodied women filmed by Hamas on the day of the attack, and photographs of bodies taken at the sites afterwards, suggest that women were sexually targeted by their attackers. Videos filmed by Hamas include footage of one woman, handcuffed and taken hostage with cuts to her arms and a large patch of blood staining the seat of her trousers. In others, women carried away by the fighters appear to be naked or semi-clothed. Multiple photographs from the sites after the attack show the bodies of women naked from the waist down, or with their underwear ripped to one side, legs splayed, with signs of trauma to their genitals and legs. Andre🚐 00:02, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

Sure, there are videos of violence against women, and there are videos of testimonies. That is not video proving rape. This is getting in to the weeds a bit, suffice it to say I do not think there is no evidence, I objected to the claim that the sources say the evidence proves anything, or that there are videos proving it. As far as the interrogations, what NBC says is NBC News could not independently verify the authenticity of the interrogation videos released by Israeli officials. Officials declined to provide unedited versions of the interrogations. nableezy - 00:09, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

"There is no video or photographic evidence that has proven rape occured" is what you said, not "There is no video evidence that has proven rape occured". Do you consider photos of naked bodies of Israeli's killed by Hamas militants proof that they were raped? I'm not sure why Hamas would be undressing women them after killing them without sexually assaulting them, but if you have some theory on that I'd be happy to hear it.

If you could, just let me know what your standard of proof for inclusion here would be. What exactly would you need to see, specifically, from a reliable source before you'd be fine including a brief mention in the lede of what seems to be a prominent topic in the reliable sources about this war? Chuckstablers (talk) 00:40, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

Reliable sources saying such and such video proves rape occurred. The same standard for all statements of fact on Wikipedia. nableezy - 01:15, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

If it's enough evidence to convict somebody in most Western countries, we can mention it in the lead. Of course Hamas's denial should be mentioned in the body of the article, but it is undue in the lead. Dovidroth (talk) 08:32, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

Reliable sources concluding something occurred is the bare minimum requirement for saying something occurred. If you think that it's enough evidence to convict somebody in most Western countries removes that requirement then you should re-read WP:V. nableezy - 14:35, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

There are conflicting reports of videos existing. The one report that I personally somewhat trust (wouldn't count for wiki, just someone who claims they saw the early videos) describes "a German woman" at the music event. It described something disrespectful, but not a rape. A lot of videos have been described but never surfaced, and the stories have been distorted in repeated retellings, because most people do not want to watch that stuff. If Israel know of any video evidence they need to give it to an expert third party who investigates war crimes, not just describe it in the media. Irtapil (talk) 00:31, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

As has been mentioned, there are reliable sources stating that these rapes occurred. 14:37, 25 December 2023 (UTC) Dovidroth (talk) 14:37, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

Can you give them as specific citations please, ping me? Like is being being said below I've mostly heard it as "Israel says". The day became a violent mess, so all types of violence seem possible, but all the specific evidence I've seen is weak or biased. Irtapil (talk) 00:31, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

No, they report that Israel has said this and that eyewitness accounts have said this. They have not concluded that they have occurred. Attributing accusations and denials is not concluding the veracity of either. nableezy - 14:50, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

And to add to the above, weighing the evidence for yourself and then engaging in independent fact-finding is WP:SYNTH. WillowCity^(talk) 15:39, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

@WillowCity: That is not what is meant by WP:SYNTH. Please review the policy detail at that link. Also, as stated on WP:TPG, There is reasonable allowance for speculation, suggestion, and personal knowledge on talk pages, with a view to prompting further investigation P.S. I love your user name. SPECIFICO talk 16:19, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

I have reviewed the policy on several occasions, and I would refer to the second sentence: do not combine different parts of one source to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by the source. In this case, combining summaries of Israel's evidence from The Guardian (and/or other sources) to reach the definitive conclusion, and state in wikivoice, that sexual violence occurred. According to Dovidroth, RS are stating that these rapes occurred; but the sources, to my knowledge, have not said so definitively; they attribute the evidence to sources within Israel and note that the claim is denied by Hamas.

As well, I certainly do not dispute that users are allowed to state their belief regarding what occurred, but our individual beliefs (as legitimately expressed on a talk page) do not satisfy WP:V and WP:RS such that they should be included in a given article. (Also: thank you for the compliment!!) WillowCity^(talk) 16:32, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

That is absolutely not what SYNTH is. First of all, it doesn't apply to talk page arguments. Secondly, see WP:SYNTHNOT. Synth is not any synthesis, it's only an original novel synthesis that doesn't appear explicitly. Andre🚐 22:02, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

(1) SYNTHNOT is an essay, not a core policy; (2) I’m saying that it would be SYNTH if it appeared in the article, which is the issue here and why it’s being discussed on a talk page at all; (3) see above, using an article’s discussion of the evidence to state, in wikivoice, that sexual assault did occur is absolutely synth, because it’s an original novel synthesis that doesn’t appear explicitly. It would be like if I cited a source that said “experts allege that Israel’s prosecution of the war satisfies the legal definition of genocide” based on XYZ evidence, to state, in wikivoice, that Israel is committing genocide. That would be taking the source’s content a step further than the source itself is willing to go, i.e., original research/synthesis. WillowCity^(talk) 23:01, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

That's not the topic of the RFC. The RFC is should there be a few sentences, with or without denial, explaining the sexual violence. The exact language should hew closely to the sources, not synthetically, but exactly as framed in the reliable sources, with attribution as attribute. Andre🚐 23:04, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

If we're hewing closely to RS, and discussing the issue exactly as framed by them, then Option A should be written off, because RS overwhelmingly if not exclusively refer to the denial. It is also unclear from the wording of the RfC whether Option A would mean stating the allegations as fact; some !voters seem to be suggesting we should, and I am explaining why that would be synthesis. WillowCity^(talk) 23:25, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

The RFC doesn't prescribe a specific wording. No RFC can obviate the need to abide by V, RS, SYNTH, etc., so regardless of what comes out, we'll need to make sure that the wording in the article is properly couched and qualified to be accurate to the sources - the RFC doesn't touch on that. If Option A succeeds, the statements will be included without denials, but they will still need to hew closely to the original source. Option B will include the denial, Option C will exclude altogether. Sounds like you might be leaning Option B, which to me isn't a bad outcome, but I can't make your !votes for you. Andre🚐 23:29, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for clearing that up. Just for the avoidance of any doubt, my !vote remains Option C, as a matter of WP:DUE and WP:BALASP. WillowCity^(talk) 23:37, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

"Reliable sources saying such and such video proves rape occurred. The same standard for all statements of fact on Wikipedia" - @Nableezy

I get where you're coming from, and I can understand where some your frustration here after fully reading a lot of the talk page.

I might be misreading the room here (chime in if you think I am), but I don't think anybody is arguing for including a "statement of fact"? I'm reading the options as adding something the allegations of rape by Hamas militants, as it is a prominently discussed topic in the sources currently. If we're going to make a statement of fact that "sexual violence was committed by members of Hamas", then we'd need reliable sources saying definitively that sexual violence was committed, on that I 100% agree with you.

If you'd argue that we need sources definitively saying that rape occurred to include something like "evidence/allegations of sexual violence by hamas militants, which hamas denies" (except not so poorly worded), then you'd also have to argue that we need RS's definitively saying that "Israel committed X war crime" everytime we say "Israel has been accused of *INSERT WAR CRIME HERE*". I don't think you'd argue for that right?

Just one final thing; I also don't think that to make a statement of fact we would require video evidence, or any evidence in particular from the sources. If a plurality of major reliable sources say that rape occurred definitively, then we could say that as a statement of fact. That seems to be the position clearly endorsed by WP:NPOV; we "represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in those sources". If an overwhelming majority of sources said that rape occurred, then it'd be fine per NPOV to just say that rape occurred as a factual statement. We wouldn't start analyzing the validity of their conclusions; given how divided editors are here on their views doing that would kind of just invite us to throw out each other's sources everytime and just start nitpicking them. Those are basically my thoughts here; I think I've said all that I really have to say and am going to step back from this conversation. It's getting unreadable as is. Chuckstablers (talk) 19:01, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

Yes if most sources agree rapes occurred then yes our article should say that too. I don’t think most sources have concluded that though, they still say things like evidence suggests. And yes, the same is true for war crimes. I dont think I, or anybody else, has inserted "Israel indiscriminately bombed civilians" or "Israel performed summary executions" or "Israel is actively starving a civilian population" as a fact either. nableezy - 21:57, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

"I dont think I, or anybody else, has inserted "Israel indiscriminately bombed civilians" or "Israel performed summary executions" or "Israel is actively starving a civilian population" as a fact either."

I think you missed my point there. I'm referring to this in the lede: "leading to accusations that Israel was using starvation as a weapon and forcing Gazans to drink contaminated, salty water." We don't require the majority of sources saying that "We've proved that Israel used starvation as a weapon" to include that. We just need sources discussing the accusations. Similarily, we wouldn't need a source saying "We've proved that Hamas militants raped Israeli women during the attack" to say "There have been accusations of rape by Israel, denied by Hamas" or something to that effect.

"Yes if most sources agree rapes occurred then yes our article should say that too. I don’t think most sources have concluded that though, they still say things like evidence suggests."

My final paragraph was more just trying to make my position clear that we wouldn't need the sources to provide or discuss any evidence in particular, as long as they say it occurred we can say it occurred. If an RS said it occurred solely on the basis of eyewitness testimony that they reviewed, then we could say it occurred. I took issue with your statement that you'd need a source saying there was video that proved it, as that isn't really needed per NPOV. Just explaining what my last paragraph was actually a response to. Chuckstablers (talk) 23:30, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

Yeah, I agree with most of that, the issues I have here are twofold. A, I dont think rapes are discussed as a topic of this war to such an extent that it merits being included in the lead. It does absolutely merit inclusion in our article on the 7 October attacks, as that has been a prominent and noteworthy controversy about those attacks and per NPOV and LEAD it belongs in the lead of that article. But here, I dont think it has the weight. Second, I think when sources attribute an accusation and include a denial we have to follow both parts of that. Your beef with my comment was about my responding to a claim that video has proven rapes occurred. I was challenging that here, because that is not true. I was not saying that was required to reach a conclusion in our article if anything happened, only for the conclusion that rapes have proven it. Because that is what was being offered as justification for including it without a denial. And that remains untrue. nableezy - 23:39, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

"I dont think rapes are discussed as a topic of this war to such an extent that it merits being included in the lead. It does absolutely merit inclusion in our article on the 7 October attacks, as that has been a prominent and noteworthy controversy about those attacks and per NPOV and LEAD it belongs in the lead of that article."

I get where you're coming from there Nableezy, I'm kind of leaning towards the side of it being a prominent enough controversy in the war in general for it to merit a very brief inclusion (with the denial) not exceeding a sentence in the second paragraph? The one that starts with "The war began"? I certainly don't think it deserves several sentences on it, that would be undue.

The main reason that I currently think it deserves a sentence is that we mention the water topic in the third paragraph ("leading to accusations that Israel was using starvation as a weapon and forcing Gazans to drink contaminated, salty water."), and that controversy has been discussed less in the RS's than the rape allegations (just doing a google search I see far less RS's discussing it than I do the rape allegations).

So if the articles "prominence of a controversy" threshold allows that controversy (about accusations of Israel using hunger/water as a weapon) in the lede (per the MOS, lede should summarize prominent controversies), then shouldn't it also allow a more prominent (in terms of how often it comes up in the RS's) controversy in the lede?

That's kinda where my heads at right now.

"I think when sources attribute an accusation and include a denial we have to follow both parts of that. "

Strongly agree.

"I was not saying that was required to reach a conclusion in our article if anything happened, only for the conclusion that rapes have proven it."

Thanks for the clarification, glad we can agree on that. Chuckstablers (talk) 00:37, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

Also, FWIW, someone has tried to insert those statements about the summary executions into the article several times. Andre🚐 23:39, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

No, they inserted that Israel was said to have done such things and eyewitness accounts said such things, and even that was removed despite the OHCHR also documenting the killings. They did not include that it happened as a fact in our narrative voice. nableezy - 23:44, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

Yes, to be clear, you are correct, and my prior message should have explained it uses the word "allegedly," (MOS:ALLEGED), and "reportedly," and ascribes it to both a confirmation on an official Twitter account, and to witness accounts circulated by media. It was removed with a rationale stated of NOTNEWS, as it's quite thinly sourced to a recent AJ piece and a Democracy Now piece, aside from the SELFPUB/PRIMARY tweet. So, I personally agree with the removal, and you are correct it was not as a fact in wikivoice, and I wasn't trying to lazily imply that it was. But does it have WEIGHT - I say no. Andre🚐 23:54, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

Fortunately, since we’re not a court of law, we don’t have to weigh circumstantial evidence and determine whether it definitively supports the inference Israel wants us to draw. I’ve said above, the opinions of individual editors do not matter, it matters what sources are reporting, which is that (1) Israel and Israeli sources have made allegations (2) Hamas denies the allegations and (3) Israel has produced evidence that they view as supportive of their position. I’m not aware of any independent, external investigation confirming Israel’s view of events as fact. More importantly, I'm not aware of a preponderance of independent RS treating them as fact or omitting the denials. And whether or not it happened (which is not the subject of this RfC) none of this addresses what is really the core question: whether the sexual violence claims are necessary to understand (and specifically, to summarize) the entire war. This issue didn’t come to international attention until earlier this month, and RS prevailingly discuss it in relation to the October 7 attacks, not in relation to the war as a whole. WillowCity^(talk) 01:43, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

• To address the argument that we should include these claims because the October 7 invasion was “ferocious” or “shocking” or “traumatic”: our purpose here is not to validate trauma. We’re here to discuss a war. The argument that sexual violence is necessary to understand Israel’s response is, frankly, bizarre, because (1) Israel was absolutely pummeling Gaza weeks before they investigated these allegations; and (2) sexual violence does not justify unlawful collective punishment. This story is not necessary to understand the war as a whole, it may be necessary to understand October 7 and the ex post facto justifications of Israeli atrocities, but this article is about neither of those things. If we devote a few sentences of the lead to events that have not yet been verified by independent, external sources, we are effectively saying that Israeli allegations are as or more important than the deaths of 8,000 Palestinian children. Child mortality has received vastly more coverage (i.e., 180,000 search results on Google News, if that's a worthwhile metric, compared to the numbers identified by nableezy above for sexual violence), but it receives only a single clause in a single sentence in the fourth paragraph of the lead. This is the very definition of a BALASP issue and the reason BALASP is part of the NPOV policy. WillowCity^(talk) 17:46, 24 December 2023 (UTC)
• "B or C (but)" - If included in the lead (undecided on that) we should probably include the denial, it is a "they said", not a fact, but that's sufficiently communicated by describing it as a "denial". (Out of interest, but I doubt are sources? 3 other groups also claimed the attacks as a whole, did they deny the sexual violence? Were they asked?) The overall level of evidence should also be discussed - I have avoided reading too much graphic detail, but there does seem to be debate - but that belongs in the body. Alternatively, instead of the denial, we could put a general these claims were disputed in the lead with refs citing Hamas and any notable third parties. The body should also contain a fairly strong statement about how (depressingly) this is ubiquitous in war because that points to the plausibility of the claims (verges on synth, but very important context for someone who might be unfamiliar with how horrible war is). Irtapil (talk) 05:42, 26 December 2023 (UTC) edited Irtapil (talk) 00:31, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

  If anything, the tragic ubiquity of wartime sexual violence weighs against inclusion in the lead of this article. I would note, to the extent this matters, that including sexual violence so prominently in the lead would depart markedly from most other wiki articles on wars. Sexual violence is not mentioned in the leads of the articles on World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Soviet–Afghan War, the Insurgency in Jammu and Kashmir, the First and Second Chechen Wars, the Iraq War, the Libyan civil war (2011), the Russian invasion of Ukraine, or the Myanmar civil war (2021–present). Wartime sexual violence is either notably alleged or extensively documented in all of these conflicts. It is tragic in every case, not just when the victims are Israeli or the alleged perpetrators are Palestinian. WillowCity^(talk) 16:13, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

  To reinforce your argument, Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945) doesn't mention comfort woman (aka "forced female sex slaves for foreign army", a hotly discussed topic in China and Korea even in 2023) in the lede either. Searching its talk page and archives, no one debated over its inclusion in the lede at all. -- Sameboat - 同舟 (talk · contri.) 11:26, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

Bombing and shooting are ubiquitous, we don't leave those out of the lead? And the comment about ubiquitous hours in the body. Irtapil (talk) 00:31, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

Because bombing and shooting are fundamental aspects of any military operation. Rape is not. Excesses unfortunately occur in wartime, and rape is one such excess. This does not mean it's significant enough to include in the lead. I also feel that the highly charged, emotive nature of a rape allegation in the lead will undermine WP:NPOV. JDiala (talk) 04:15, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

• B but specify who denied it - Reflecting on my previous answer. Specify which individual(s) denied it, not just "Hamas". The guy who denied it (if we are thinking of the same denial?) was in Qatar when it happened. We shouldn't be talking about Hamas as if it is a single individual or a hive-mind. If more than one person denied it then specify as succinctly as possible "Hamas leaders" or "spokespersons outside Gaza", etc. The denial is relevant to whether it was part of the plan, but says very little about whether it happened. (For the sake of declaring my bias, my personal opinion is that it was not part of any faction's plan, there's negligible evidence of anything systematic, but they created a chaotic situation where some sexual violence, and other horrible things, were almost inevitable. If there's a last minute open-invite for "let's invade Israel" a city of 2 million will have at least one Ted Bundy / Richard Ramirez / Ivan Milat who will join in.) Irtapil (talk) 00:31, 27 December 2023 (UTC)
• As I sort of said before, to me there is a lot of ambiguity in WHO did it. There were 4 factions who claimed the attacks, and one of the small secular factions is arguably more violent than Hamas, but no reliable sources say which faction ended up where. There are also controversial reports that some non-militant criminals showed up opportunistically. (Which obscenely are being spun as "it was civilians, so kill all civilians!" would you bomb Milwaukee just because Jeffrey Dahmer was there?) Irtapil (talk) 00:31, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

We get it, you don't agree. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 21:21, 24 December 2023 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
It'd be like writing a story about the Iraq and Afghanistan war without mentioning 9/11 or bin Laden. Andre🚐 18:39, 24 December 2023 (UTC) It would be like writing an article about the war in Afghanistan and not including box cutters on one of the planes in the lead of the article on the war. nableezy - 19:50, 24 December 2023 (UTC) That comment, unconstructive for this page, is also deeply offensive to every volunteer editor on this site who cares about gender issues of denial and entitlement. SPECIFICO talk 21:18, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

What is going on above? I used the reply button but my comment has appeared in a boy that is dated for the day before yesterday??? Irtapil (talk) 06:09, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

It's an admin's hat for offtopicking comments. I'll move it. Andre🚐 06:13, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

New investigation and independent confirmation from The NY Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/28/world/middleeast/oct-7-attacks-hamas-israel-sexual-violence.html “A two-month investigation by The Times uncovered painful new details, establishing that the attacks against women were not isolated events but part of a broader pattern of gender-based violence on Oct. 7.” — Preceding unsigned comment added by Drsmoo (talk • contribs) Revision as of 17:33, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

On the other hand, much of the initial reportage, univeresally circulated for weeks, came from ZAKA. For which see The Short String, ZAKA is not a trustworthy source for allegations of sexual violence on October 7 Mondoweiss 30 December 2023 Nishidani (talk) 05:35, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

That’s an opinion piece in a source considered at RSP as biased and with no consensus on reliability. Plus, I don’t see the relevance to the article from the NYT? BilledMammal (talk) 06:23, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

Mondoweiss is a far-left publication that publishes op-eds saying the attacks were justified. [27] It should not be relied upon for facts. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 05:51, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

@Chess I must say I was surprised to see the NYT prominently feature ZAKA's Yossi Landau in their piece. To my mind he's completely discredited as a reliable source. He is the "ZAKA volunteer" referred to here in Haaretz (he is mentioned by name in one of the embedded videos) who was responsible for numerous lurid, false reports. See also article by France 24 and others. Andreas JN466 10:03, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

Requested move 23 December 2023

2023 Israel–Hamas war → ? –

Variants of "Israel–Hamas war":

• A: 2023 Israel–Hamas war → Israel–Hamas war (2023–present) or
• B: 2023 Israel–Hamas war → Israel–Hamas war or
• E: 2023 Israel–Hamas war → 2023 Israel–Hamas war (no change)
• I: 2023 Israel–Hamas war → 2023–2024 Israel–Hamas war or
• L: 2023 Israel–Hamas war → 2023–24 Israel–Hamas war or
• N: 2023 Israel–Hamas war → 2023–present Israel–Hamas war or
• O: 2023 Israel–Hamas war → Israel–Hamas war (2023–2024) or
• P: 2023 Israel–Hamas war → Israel–Hamas war (2023–24) or

Others:

• C: 2023 Israel–Hamas war → Israel–Gaza war (2023–present) or
• D: 2023 Israel–Hamas war → Israel–Gaza war or
• G: 2023 Israel–Hamas war → Israel–Palestine war (2023–present) or
• H1: 2023 Israel–Hamas war → 2023–2024 Israel–Palestine war or
• H2: 2023 Israel–Hamas war → Israel–Palestine war (2023–2024) or
• J: 2023 Israel–Hamas war → 2023 Israel–Palestine war or
• K: 2023 Israel–Hamas war → Israel–Palestine war or
• M: 2023 Israel–Hamas war → 2023–24 Israel–Palestine war

(You can add other name suggestions if you think that it is appropriate)
With almost a week left for this year to end, I think it is about time we start the discussion for renaming this article (Admins please don't move the article before 1/1/2024)
Abo Yemen✉ 07:23, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

First discussion

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

• B. Not "–present" because of WP:RELTIME, and also because it adds nothing. There is no other "YYYY Israel–Hamas war" or "Israel–Hamas war of YYYY", so per WP:PRECISE Israel–Hamas war is sufficient, and per WP:CONCISE it is best (and it's already a redirect). If there's another one at some point, the title can be taken up again at that time. (Note: in this edit, I added the 'A' and 'B' prefixes to the choices above. Mathglot (talk) 08:18, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

  thanks for adding the prefixes! Abo Yemen✉ 08:25, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

  @Mathglot wouldn't WP:PRECISE not apply here given that there have been multiple recent conflicts between Israel and Hamas? Ergzay (talk) 05:16, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

  Not necessarily, based on WP:DUE and WP:COMMONNAME. A search of the top 100 results for "Israel–Hams War" shows almost nothing for other conflicts. The examples Bothell, Washington, Leeds North West, and M-185 (Michigan highway) are some examples where WP:OVERPRECISION makes sense, by dint of existing naming conventions for each of those cases; but that doesn't apply to 2023 Israel–Hamas war because there is no such convention that applies in this case afaik. If you can show that other conflicts come up significantly for an unbiased search, I'd have to reevaluate my conclusion. Mathglot (talk) 11:04, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

• B: Only name. The article Siege of Mariupol is not called Siege of Mariupol (2022) because of the Battle of Mariupol (1919). Per WP:TITLEDAB, disambiguation is only necessary when there is otherwise an actual conflict in article titles. No such conflict in titles exists. Per WP:CONCISE, concision is preferred over unnecessary precision. not only is there still no other article titled Israel–Hamas war, but even if there was, this article is unequivocally still the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. Parham wiki (talk) 09:30, 23 December 2023 (UTC)
• Option B for the same reason as those commenting above. Riposte97 (talk) 12:09, 23 December 2023 (UTC)
• 'Premature' and also fails to give sufficient options, such as "leave alone for now." After Jan. 1 we can determine how or if to rename this, perhaps to 2023-2024 Hamas war, which is the option I would favor after Jan 1, consistent with 2014 Gaza war on the previous major conflict. I certainly see the point of this nomination and we do want to think about renaming going forward. But right now the name is correct. Option B' is no good because there were indeed wars in 2014 etc. and it is too broad. Coretheapple (talk) 15:47, 23 December 2023 (UTC)
• Changing to E. This option was not available when I posted the comment above. Title should be left alone for the time being. Coretheapple (talk) 16:39, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

  Option B' is no good because there were indeed wars in 2014 etc. and it is too broad. Read my comment. Parham wiki (talk) 15:51, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

• D. I'm also fine with C, though I'm not sure if the date is necessary. I was opposed to the war being titled anything after Hamas from the start and I reaffirm my opposition, even after mainstream news outlets have adopted this name. I fundamentally believe that at no point of the conflict would it be accurate for the name "Hamas" to be in the title- Hamas was not the only group to participate in the October 7 invasion, and the overwhelming majority of people killed in the conflict are not Hamas. My suggestion has always been Israel–Gaza war as it makes it clear the war is between the inhabitants of Gaza as a whole versus Israel, even if this is not the name most sources use- it is the most neutral and accurate name one can give the conflict. HadesTTW (he/him • talk) 16:15, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

  I agree with your reasoning, and if I had created the article I would have called it that. My first thought was that we are bound by WP:COMMONNAME but a Google search indicates that both are in use, with Israel-Hamas war being about 20% more popular. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 19:19, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

  Yes, I acknowledge that the name "Israel-Hamas" war is more widely used in sources. However, I believe that despite WP:COMMONNAME, going with the name "Israel-Gaza" would avoid a WP:NPOV violation.

  I argue that these names are not interchangeable or equivalent as it doesn't fully comprehend the scope of the war. Imagine if the conflict was titled "IDF-Hamas War"- of course, this would be inaccurate, as many Israelis who were not in the IDF and were mere civilians were massacred in October 7. The same applies for this situation- Hamas militants are only a fraction of the 20,000 Gazans dead, which includes thousands of very young children who obviously can not be a part of Hamas. The name "Israel-Hamas" violates neutral point of view in that it ignores the large proportion of the war with no affiliation with Hamas, even if it is what reputable news outlets use.

  (Getting into why most news outlets use the name "Israel-Hamas" probably goes beyond the scope of this talk page discussion.)

  HadesTTW (he/him • talk) 06:49, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

  I strongly concur with this reasoning. AJ uses Israel-Gaza War and all the hip kids you want using Wikipedia in the future key very keenly on phrasing. Right now, we're a hummus joke. Everyone knows that's just a cherry-picked bogeyman being used to perpetuate a genocide. It doesn't say NPOV, it doesn't say global perspective, it says we are old and drink kool-aid. ClaudeReigns (talk) 09:08, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

• Hi has been changed page to "Israel–Hamas war" before 1 January 2024 ok Thanks. Andre Farfan (talk) 22:32, 23 December 2023 (UTC)
• D - not specifying a date seems best as I don't think there are any wars this would be confused with and it isn't ending before the year does, and Hamas is far from the only group involved with the current fighting. Remagoxer (talk) 19:12, 24 December 2023 (UTC)
• E or if it must be changed A or B - I don't have a strong opinion other than I think the existing name is fine and doesn't have any issues with it, but if it needs to be changed it should be A or B, as C/D change the meaning of the conflict. The war is against Hamas and related groups, not against the existence of Gaza. Ergzay (talk) 21:52, 24 December 2023 (UTC)
• Hamas-Israel War (2023 - present) :^) Metallurgist (talk) 22:58, 24 December 2023 (UTC)
• E - the war is known by the date that it began. B is too broad and could refer to the 2014 conflict, among others. I am also open to changing it to "2023-2024 Hamas war" after January 1. Dovidroth (talk) 06:54, 25 December 2023 (UTC)
• E. I agree that the war is known by the date it began, and there have been multiple Israel-Hamas wars. It is also, as mentioned above, premature and quite possible that a common name for the war will emerge next year. Marokwitz (talk) 10:26, 25 December 2023 (UTC)
• E (or if needed A or B), I believe that it is still early, and the conflict started in 2023 so the current isn't entirely incorrect from next year. However, this proposal combines three issues, what is the best format for the year, whether the year is needed, or whether Hamas or Gaza is more common. The controversial issue of whether to use "Hamas" or "Gaza" must be separate considering past discussions. Article title policy states the most common name is to be prioritised over the need for a NPOV name per WP:NPOVNAME. Ofc, if common use changes, I would fully support it. When 2024 comes hopefully sources can settle on a new name. DankJae 18:24, 25 December 2023 (UTC)
• F I'd call it the Gaza genocide. Why not just leave the question and decide a proper name later because I don't think it'll survive as a 'war'. That is what it is shaping up to be with Netenyahu talking about the job only beginning and I estimate it would require killing a tenth of the population of Gaza to eliminate Hamas at the current rate. And they are planning to occupy it afterwards which would mean Israeli settlements pushing out the inhabitants like on the West Bank I don't know if the UN will survive this after people in the west wake up to what they are supporting. NadVolum (talk) 20:48, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

  F is a terrible choice. There is already a page for the 2023 Israeli bombing of Gaza and renaming the 2023 Israel-Hamas War article to "Gaza genocide" discounts the October 7th attack and other IDF fighting in West Bank/Lebanon just to express a political opinion. EytanMelech (talk) 00:31, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

• E. The name should stay the same, as 1. Any extra clarification of the date is not needed, and would just look bad. There is only one Israel-Hamas war in 2023. For option B, although there has only really been one direct Israel-Hamas War (this one), it still can be confused with various wars and battles in the past, like the 2014 Gaza War. C and D not only make it more confusing, but are also inaccurate, because this is a war between Israel and Hamas, not Gaza. According to their statements, Israel is not attempting to eliminate Gaza, they are attempting to eliminate Hamas. Antny08 (talk) 02:47, 26 December 2023 (UTC)
• E for now. I hope it will be over well before 2025, but if it isn't, then we could talk about it again in December 2024. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:04, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

E I would also point out that I think for now its best. I think the move is a bit premature. Either way, I must mention that alphabetically it should be Hamas-Israel since H comes before I... Homerethegreat (talk) 06:23, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

@Homerethegreat: but absolutely nowhere is calling it "Hamas-Israel"? I've even seen at least one instance of "Israel-Hamas" on Al-Jazeera (not normally on team Israel), but none the other way. Irtapil (talk) 06:29, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

•  Comment: Per WP:NHC, statements that contradict policy should be discounted. A, C and E Votes do not address the prevailing policy but largely make a simple statement that other wars exist. While things can change, this does not mean that they will change. For the present (and the foreseeable future), the B option is supported by policy. Also Israel–Hamas war redirects to this article. Parham wiki (talk) 06:46, 26 December 2023 (UTC)
• E; the date when the war began is clear enough for now until a common name for it emerges. Oppose B for now - I'm not convinced that it qualifies as a WP:COMMONNAME at the moment. Of course the current search results for that particular term are going to be dominated by a currently active war over past conflicts - that's how search engines work. But a quick Google Scholar search says that about 40% of the hits for the term are from 2022 or earlier; clearly it is not a precise term. Without a clear common name, we have to follow WP:CRITERIA, which requires unambiguous precision. The simple statement that other wars exist is a valid policy-based argument and, given the weak arguments otherwise presented for renaming to B, is sufficient to take that option out of the running. As an aside, the only other argument presented for B (that no other article currently exists with that title) is also spurious and not grounded in policy - WP:PRECISION does not care whether we have other articles under that name (indeed, if a name is unacceptably vague, it would be expected that we wouldn't.) What matters is whether it unambiguously identifies the article subject, which it plainly does not. --Aquillion (talk) 11:45, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

  Was it before October 7 or not? Parham wiki (talk) 12:00, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

  Even if true, 60% (plus other sources) indicate that this article is WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. Parham wiki (talk) 12:28, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

• E' per Aquillion. Andre🚐 11:50, 26 December 2023 (UTC)
• C or D. I got the ball rolling on the COMMONNAME move to "Israel-Hamas" very early on (10 October), but I regret that. Subsequent developments have made the title non-compliant with WP:NPOV, as reliable sources keep noting the extent to which this war is affecting all Gazans, all areas of Gaza, and destroying huge pans of Gazan civil society, not just Hamas members. I doubt the majority of the Gaza-related contents in this article is about Hamas itself (vs. other Gazans), so the title no longer even matches the content. I also agree with HadesTTW's reasoning. I see more WP:AND-related arguments above; here's my previous argument against them. DFlhb (talk) 12:06, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

  It's not necessarily an NPOV violation to omit the harm accruing to civilians/infrastructure in one polity. To my knowledge, that's never been a major consideration in naming conflicts, cf belligerents. Riposte97 (talk) 13:05, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

• Support B as most reported, most accurate, and the war isn't going to end in 5 days, unfortunately. 𝕸𝖗 𝕽𝖊𝖆𝖉𝖎𝖓𝖌 𝕿𝖚𝖗𝖙𝖑𝖊 🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱 ☎️ 📄 14:07, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

  B, additionally that is what the ITN puts it as. 𝕸𝖗 𝕽𝖊𝖆𝖉𝖎𝖓𝖌 𝕿𝖚𝖗𝖙𝖑𝖊 🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱 ☎️ 📄 14:10, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

• A, as the war will no longer be isolated to just 2023 once the year ends. B if WP:COMMONNAME shows that "Israel-Hamas war" needs no date specified. A move from E is necessary once the year ends though. - presidentofyes, the super aussa man 14:40, 26 December 2023 (UTC)
• D or C per Wikipedia:Article titles. It is important to note that there are 5 CRITERIA for deciding on an article title: (1) Recognizability, (2) Naturalness, (3) Precision, (4) Concision and (5) Consistency. Despite the fact that everyone keeps citing it like it is the full expression of our policy on article titles, WP:COMMONNAME is only a small aspect of the above 5 criteria. COMMONNAME only captures recognizability and perhaps naturalness. In considering the title for this article, COMMONNAME doesn't account for precision and consistency.

It is imprecise to describe this war as between Israel and Hamas. Despite the false claims by the Zionist entity, the death toll is indiputable evidence that the war is against all of Gaza. If this was just a war with Hamas, 20,000 deaths would mean the entire strength of Hamas would have been destroyed.

It is also inconsistent with the many articles with "Gaza–Israel" in the title. Per WP:AT, A good Wikipedia article title... is consistent with the pattern of similar articles' titles. This article and its children are the only titles that include an organization Hamas hyphenated with a country Israel. The current title is inconsistent with May 2023 Gaza–Israel clashes, 2022 Gaza–Israel clashes, November 2019 Gaza–Israel clashes, May 2019 Gaza–Israel clashes, March 2012 Gaza–Israel clashes, March 2010 Israel–Gaza clashes, and 2006 Gaza–Israel conflict ...

Even if we inappropriately only considered COMMONNAME, there is no clear evidence that Hamas is part of the common name used for the war. There is just as much evidence that Gaza is used as the common name in reliable sources. --- C&C (Coffeeandcrumbs) 18:00, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

• C per C&C, but D is also acceptable per WP:NCE. I would emphasize as well that WP:COMMONNAME is specifically subject to the requirement of NPOV (like everything else on Wikipedia). The policy states: Neutrality is also considered; see § Neutrality in article titles, below. WP:NPOVNAME allows for a POV title only where the subject is referred to mainly by a single common name, as evidenced through usage in a significant majority of English-language sources (emphasis added). Here, "Israel–Hamas war" may be used by a preponderance of sources, but it is not the single common name, nor is it demonstrably used by a significant majority of sources, and many of the sources that do use it do so alongside other names. The fact that it is the preferred name of one party to the conflict should give us pause.

Some RS that use Israel–Gaza war (whether exclusively or in addition to I-H war): the BBC, ABC, Al Jazeera, WaPo, The Guardian. Israel–Gaza war is more internally consistent with our other article titles, and there are other armed groups involved, making the current title inaccurate and simultaneously imprecise and overprecise (frankly, even F would be more accurate than the current title.) WillowCity^(talk) 00:20, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

Edit: I would also be satisfied with any of options G, H, J, K or M. WillowCity^(talk) 18:04, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

• B. Opposed to using 'present' as already explained above and oppose 'gaza' per CommonName in RS. Yeoutie (talk) 02:26, 27 December 2023 (UTC)
• Support B according to WP:COMMONNAME, and having in mind that this war will not be finished before the onset of 2024. — Sundostund mppria ^{(talk / contribs)} 09:31, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

• B. Per WP:PRECISE, WP:CONCISE, and WP:COMMONNAME. -- Cdjp1 (talk) 14:59, 27 December 2023 (UTC)
• C. I agree completely with WillowCity above, WP:COMMONNAME (a policy about using recognisable names as opposed to overly formal ones) is being misapplied here as per usual. The problem with D is that there have been several other "Israel–Gaza wars" such as those 2008–9, 2012, 2014 etc. Oppose all the others on grounds of NPOV. – filelakeshoe (t / c) 🐱 16:48, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

• C. I concur with the points raised by WillowCity and filelakeshoe. The title “Israel–Gaza war (2023–present)” seems to be a more accurate and recognisable representation of the situation as it encapsulates the broader impact of the war on the entire region of Gaza, not just Hamas. This is in line with WP:NPOV, which emphasizes neutrality and fairness in representation. Furthermore, the addition of the year and “present” provides a clear timeline of the ongoing conflict. This is crucial for historical accuracy and context, especially considering the previous “Israel–Gaza wars”. – Ainty Painty (talk) 17:26, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

• E. There have been man wars and battles following the Battle of Gaza in 2007. Overthrow-dictator (talk) 00:32, 28 December 2023 (UTC)
• B or D. As others have noted, I agree that "Israel-Hamas War" would be the clearest, most concise, and precise new name for the page that would likely not need to be changed again for the foreseeable future. I still believe that this is the most commonly used name for the war in news media at present. "Israel-Gaza War" is an acceptable alternate, however I believe it may be too similar in name to "Gaza-Israel conflict" and may cause confusion when searching. Option E is out of the question to me, article name needs to change. At a later date if historical consensus is reached, Option F may be considered. I also suggest capitalization of the word War as in Iraq War and Six-Day War. forerunner45 (talk) 01:09, 28 December 2023 (UTC)
• B or A, the war is likely to continue in 2024, so the current name should be changed. Alaexis_¿question? 07:33, 28 December 2023 (UTC)
• B — Israel–Hamas war, because it is a concise and common name that is unlikely to be confused with other conflicts. The "about" template which is already at the top of the page also directs those who were looking for different articles.

If a variant of "Israel–Gaza war" is used for this article, a name which I find more neutral but less common, I believe "2023" should be added to the start (2023 Israel–Gaza war). FunLater (talk) 17:33, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

• B: As predicted, this will drag on into at least 2024, so it is time to drop the year.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 19:30, 28 December 2023 (UTC)
• Option C: per the same reasons as this similar previous move discussion in that the current title is both inaccurate or imprecise since the conflict has metastasized to embroil all of Gaza; that "Hamas" is not a place and so does not produce a coherent WP:NCWWW title; that the title remains inconsistent with the broader "Israel-Gaza conflict" series of pages on Wikipedia; and due to the lack of a clean-cut commonname case for the use of the current title - given the widespread use of the "Israel-Gaza" alternative by reliable sources, including the BBC, Guardian, etc. Iskandar323 (talk) 23:07, 28 December 2023 (UTC)
• C. I wouldn't mind Option B despite being a little bit confusing, but Option E wouldn't fit properly since the war will definitely still happen next year. I choose option C because the conflict has been going on for decades, only for it to significantly escalate in 2023. Quake1234 (talk) 12:24, 29 December 2023 (UTC)
• B if we are abiding by Wikipedia guidelines, namely common name. I am open to adding to it "2023-present" but I think that it would make it just sound awkward.
• E The war began this year, and it is the only Hamas-Israel war in 2023. Figureofnine (talk • contribs) 22:08, 29 December 2023 (UTC)
• G or H or J or M - The least-worst option is "Israel-Palestine war" with some sort of date designation, but I have no strong opinions about how we do the dates. I added K to the list as well, because I only care about how we describe the adversaries, but I think leaving it undated would be too confusing? Irtapil (talk) 02:44, 30 December 2023 (UTC) updated Irtapil (talk) 14:21, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

Because it is not just Gaza - I very much dislike the "Israel Hamas war" framing, it is a version of the story which seems to be only be told by one side? So not appropriate. But "Gaza" would not by much of an improvement because there are substantial hostilities in the West Bank, and two way strikes on the northern border (two Australians got killed by an IDF airstrike in Lebanon this week), and Houthis in the Red Sea. Irtapil (talk) 14:21, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

• L 2023–24 Israel–Hamas war. "Israel-Hamas war" was chosen thanks to being the name used by RS, and it still is the name used by RS. Removing the date is too vague because Israel and Hamas have been engaged in a longer-term conflict for decades which could be described as a "war". The current title will become blatantly incorrect in two days' time, and there is no consensus for a replacement, so the best option is the least change possible to the current title whilst recognizing that the war has extended into 2024. Chessrat ^{(talk, contributions)} 05:12, 30 December 2023 (UTC)
• B, but would also support any other form of "Israel-Hamas war".
  In this move request we consider three different names; Israel-Hamas war, Israel-Gaza war, and Israel-Palestine war. Of these three, in the past day news sources have used:

1. Israel-Hamas war approximately 140 times (and approximately another 40 using Hamas-Israel war)
2. Israel-Palestine war approximately 30 times (and another 3 using Palestine-Israel war)
3. Israel-Gaza war approximately 60 times (and approximately another 10 using Gaza-Israel war)

This usage shows that a significant majority of sources use Israel-Hamas war and thus WP:COMMONNAME is met.

For us to ignore this evidence there would need to be a strong argument of other issues with the title, but only two arguments have been presented; that the name is not neutral, and that the name is inconsistent.

The first argument has generally been asserted without evidence, and in many cases without argument - the closest we have to an argument for it is that the current name ignores the large proportion of the war with no affiliation with Hamas. I don't agree with that; Hamas is the government of the Gaza Strip and thus all inhabitants are affiliated with it. In addition, the name is consistent with titles such as War against the Islamic State.

The second argument is also weak; looking at Template:Campaignbox Gaza–Israel conflict there is no consistency in article titles and thus consistency is not an argument to move this one.

As such, we are obliged to follow the reliable sources, and that means using B or some variant on it; my personal preference is for B, as it is the most concise while still abiding by the rest of WP:CRITERIA. BilledMammal (talk) 05:15, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

@BilledMammal: I would respectfully request that you strike it recuse yourself from the statement that "Hamas is the government of the Gaza Strip and thus all inhabitants are affiliated with it." - this is the same inaccurate generalization that involved politicians have made in recent statements of genocidal intent, and I sincerely hope that this was just a poorly wrought wording. On the substance, it has been a long while since Israel's war has been prosecuted solely against Hamas, if it ever was, and there remains, yes, a glaring issue in the unnatural and inconsistent mismatch between "Israel" and "Hamas" as comparable nouns, not least in the basic failing per WP:NCWWW by way of "Hamas" not being a geography, but a government actor within a political system akin to "Likud" on the opposing side. You make a comparison with a title involving Islamic State, but that is not a good comparison. This is not a "war against" title, but a hyphenated "like for like", geography "X–Y" title (or should be). At the most basic level, the allusion to ISIS is a POV one, having come straight from the lips of the likes of Netanyahu, but the similitude stops there. There is no less similitude between "Israel" and "Hamas" in the sense that both have been accused of terroristic behaviour. Moving to a broader point about geographical naturalness in the title, it is frankly absurd not to have the actual geography involved in the war, "Gaza", in the title at this point given that this is where almost all of it has taken place. This was never a conflict of precision strikes against Hamas (it would likely not have devolved into a "war" had it been so); it has always been a highly indiscriminate campaign of bombardment and more personal acts of violence – one which has resulted in the total devastation of the Gaza Strip alongside the murder and starvation of a grossly disproportionate count of the inhabitants of Gaza ... Now to the extent that the Genocide Convention has been invoked. Iskandar323 (talk) 07:03, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

As a general point; NPOV isn't what we think is neutral, it's what reflects reliable sources on a topic. If reliable sources on a topic describe this as a war between Hamas (and other militant groups) and Israel, declining to describe it as a war between Gaza and Israel, then to comply with NPOV we must describe this as a war between Hamas and Israel, including in our titles; to describe it as a war between Gaza and Israel would be an NPOV violation.

Regarding a government actor within a political system akin to "Likud" on the opposing side: That isn't an accurate comparison. With Hamas and the de-facto Gazan State, the lines between Party and State are blurred, but with Likud and Israel are not.

This blurring is particularly strong when we consider the composition of the armed forces. In Israel, Israel has an army, Likud does not. In Gaza, Hamas has an army, Gaza does not, and as such Israel isn't fighting Gaza. Instead, Israel is fighting Hamas in Gaza, making the current title accurate and your preferred title inaccurate - which explains why reliable sources prefer the current title.

Regarding the comparison with a title involving Islamic State it demonstrates that it can be appropriate to refer to the party that controls the territory. BilledMammal (talk) 08:42, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

NPOV requires we respect all significant views; it doesn't mean that majoritarian headline language makes for the best page title. Of the available options in currency, this page currently sits at the only one that fails to outline the basic geography of the conflict, per WP:NCWWW. And geography is emphasized for good reason. Many events in Gaza do not involve Hamas. A source about the bombing of the church of St. Porphyrios need make no mention of Hamas, but it would be highly unlikely to exclude "Gaza" as a location. Beyond headlines, and we indeed ignore headlines, per WP:HEADLINE, the stories about this war that mention Gaza will significantly outnumber those that mention Hamas. Iskandar323 (talk) 12:12, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

You're asking the wrong question; you're asking where reliable sources say the war is taking place. What you need to ask is who reliable sources say the war is taking place between.

In response to that question, most reliable sources say Israel and Hamas, sometimes with the addition of other militant groups - and this isn't, I note, something limited to headlines. Reliable sources consistently call it the "Israel-Hamas war" in prose, and they consistently characterize it as a war between Israel and Hamas in prose. BilledMammal (talk) 12:52, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

Reliable sources obliviously don't refer to it as a war between Israel and Hamas in all of the litany of instances where Israel bombs something and there isn't any evidence to back up its claims that it is attacking something military. 60% of Gaza's houses were never anything but civilian property. Which RS routinely refer to it as the "Israel-Hamas war" in prose? More than anything this appears to be more of a story tag or shorthand headline prefix than a prose term. Iskandar323 (talk) 14:15, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

Reliable sources obliviously don't refer to it as a war between Israel and Hamas in all of the litany of instances where Israel bombs something and there isn't any evidence to back up its claims that it is attacking something military. Can you clarify the point you are trying to make here?

Which RS routinely refer to it as the "Israel-Hamas war" in prose? To start, most of these hundreds of scholarly sources; I think there are enough sources there to satisfy your request? BilledMammal (talk) 14:33, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

You said consistently; I said routinely - a raw search is nothing but a scattershot and shows neither. Iskandar323 (talk) 22:08, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

In regards to WP:NCWWW, you have overlooked the first sentence in that section, which says If there is an established, common name for an event, use that name. There is an established common name for this event, Israel-Hamas war.

You’ve also overlooked the last section of that guideline, WP:NCENPOV, which tells us if there is a particular common name for the event, it should be used even if it implies a controversial point of view. I disagree that there is a POV issue with the current title, but even if there was the guideline you have been referencing tells us to use it. BilledMammal (talk) 16:34, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

The WP:NCE guideline has to be read in light of the overarching policy, WP:NC, which takes precedence over the guideline in the event of a contradiction. I've explained above why the WP:COMMONNAME argument is a red herring; here, there are multiple names in common use, and accordingly, we have to err on the side of NPOV. Iskandar323 has thoroughly explained why the current title is POV. As well, you seem to be conflating the policy on WP:RS with WP:NPOV; these are two different policies (albeit with some overlap). WillowCity^(talk) 17:18, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

I wasn’t the editor who raised NCE; that was Iskander. I was merely demonstrating why their arguments that it supported their preferred title were incorrect. However, which aspect of NC contradict NCE?

I’ll add that your assertion that there are multiple common names is incorrect; Israel-Hamas war sees about twice the use as the other options combined.

Can you clarify why you believe I’ve conflated WP:RS with WP:NPOV? BilledMammal (talk) 17:25, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

(1) The guideline itself does not contradict the policy itself, but applying the guideline in the manner you suggest would contradict the policy. Under NCE, POV titles are allowed if there is a particular common name for the event; under WP:NPOVNAME, a POV name is only permitted where the subject of an article is referred to mainly by a single common name, as evidenced through usage in a significant majority of English-language sources. I've explained above why "Israel-Hamas war" does not meet the latter standard; the guideline standard ("a particular common name") is somewhat more ambiguous so it is superseded by the more specific requirements of the NC policy. Without putting words in Iskandar's mouth, I assume they are suggesting we should accordingly apply the other criteria of WP:NCE, namely, WP:NCWWW.

(2) the fact that Israel-Hamas war may be more commonly used does not make it the single common name; your own source review demonstrates a significant number of sources using either Israel-Gaza war or Israel-Palestine war.

(3) above you write that we "must" describe this as a war between Hamas and Israel because reliable sources do so. This is not sufficient to satisfy NPOV. Some reliable sources describe it this way, others do not. In such circumstances, we should opt for an NPOV title. By way of illustration, Amnesty International, an RSPSS green source, describes Israel as being guilty of apartheid; is this sufficient for us to state in wikivoice that Israel is committing the crime of apartheid? NPOV, in fact, requires that we give effect to competing viewpoints; it does not require that we ignore perspectives that are "outnumbered", so to speak. Hence the purpose of this discussion. WillowCity^(talk) 17:57, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

(1) and (2) I would say that approximately twice as many as the other options combined is a significant majority of English-language sources, wouldn't you?

(3) In such circumstances, we should opt for an NPOV title. The NPOV title is the one that reflects the position of the majority of reliable sources (Neutrality requires that mainspace articles and pages fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in those sources). The majority holds that it is a war between Israel and Hamas, not between Israel and Gaza. Many editors have presented evidence for this, and as far as I can tell no editor has presented evidence against it. BilledMammal (talk) 18:03, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

WP:NPOVNAME allows for a POV name only where there is only a single common name. Here we have multiple competing names, with "Israel-Gaza war" used consistently across sources like the BBC, Guardian, etc., i.e. GREL sources and clear proof that there is no single common name across English language reliable sources. Iskandar323 (talk) 22:20, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

@BilledMammal: I haven't missed any of that. I disagree that there is one name that significantly outweighs all others. There are competing names, but short of an overwhelming divide in prevalence there is no common name and other criteria must be referenced. Iskandar323 (talk) 22:14, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

• E or A. Israel and Hamas have been in various states of military conflict before, so the distinction of the date is important. See 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine compared to Russo-Ukrainian War for example; one describes a particular phase of the military conflict while the other does not. This article seems to follow the be the former. I'm not in favor of any of the new (bot proposed?) titles suggesting Israel is in a state of war with Gaza or Palestine, if no other reason than the fact the Palestine Authority - which is decidedly not at war with Israel right now - exists as a major political contender with Hamas and still claims authority over Palestine/Gaza. --Katangais (talk) 06:10, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

  2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine is now Russian invasion of Ukraine. See RM. Options that contradict the policy, such as the arguments of opponents of Russian invasion of Ukraine, should be ignored. Parham wiki (talk) 09:46, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

A. It makes sense to change it to Israel-Hamas War 2023-Present because the will continue into 2024. NesserWiki (talk) 01:38, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

• war.

NesserWiki (talk) 01:39, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

• B Move to Israel–Hamas war because there aren't any other articles with this title.

Toadette ^{(Merry Christmas, and a happy new year)} 12:58, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

A. This is the logical answer. We do not know when this conflict will end, its ongoing. It clearly distinguishes itself from the other pages in this 80 year old war. It follows the Wikipedia standard for other ongoing conflicts here on Wikipedia. This is the best option. Stidmatt (talk) 01:53, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

B per Mathglot, it already redirects there so why not use it as the title Sebbog13 (talk) 00:53, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

 Comment: To call it "war against Hamas" is misleading (some would say, propaganda). Wars in the primary sense take place between states, not between governments or leaders. As an example, it would be wrong to call, say, the Iraq War, a "Republican–Ba'ath war"; or the Russia–Ukraine war, a "Russia–Zelensky war". I will argue that the term "Hamas" must be removed from title altogether. It's patently obvious by now that it's not Hamas-owned properties that are being bombed by Israel but the entirety of Gaza Strip, i.e., the entire state is at war. — kashmīrī ^TALK 07:14, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

And one might note that South Africa's ICJ filing is not over genocidal acts against "Hamas", which is not a people, but the inhabitants of Gaza as a whole. The correct frame of reference is now affirmed in legal documents. Iskandar323 (talk) 08:42, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

@Iskandar323: Do you have a link to what was said thar you are referring to? I'm interested to see the details. If your point is that "only at war with Hamas" is a lie, then I definitely agree. Is that your point? Irtapil (talk) 13:42, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

That is more or less my point. South Africa's filing is all over the internet. Here's Al Jazeera on it. Iskandar323 (talk) 15:16, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

You can also read the 84-page filing itself, here. WillowCity^(talk) 15:40, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

@Iskandar323, @Quake1234, @Ainty Painty, @Dan Carkner, @M3ATH, Change your vote to D for the reasons I explained. Parham wiki (talk) 11:37, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

C as probably the most accurate among these imperfect options, even if aspects of the war take place on the Lebanese border, in the West Bank, etc. The main part of the war is against the whole territory of Gaza not specifically Hamas, so using that terminology is preferable. --Dan Carkner (talk) 16:23, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

You can select a new option. Also read my comments above. Parham wiki (talk) 16:27, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

• B per WP:COMMONNAME as BilledMammal demonstrated above. No need to deviate from what the media is writing, Wikipedia policy is policy for a reason. I don't see the need for a year considering the previous Gaza conflicts went under different names. Swordman97 ^{talk to me} 03:07, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

  Adding to what I said, WP:NOYEAR supports the above point. Swordman97 ^{talk to me} 03:11, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

  @Swordman97

  Common name where? There's a range of names, and Israel-Hamas is very much at one end of that spectrum. Irtapil (talk) 16:22, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

• A - Israel–Hamas war (2023–present). A title containing only 2023 is misleading, as the war is continuing in 2024. 2023 implies that it started and ended in 2023 which is observably not true. For this reason the Russian invasion of Ukraine is not called "2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine", for example. GreatLeader1945 (talk) 11:02, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

• Comment I think it's clear at this point that there will definitely be no consensus to change the title from some variant of "Israel–Hamas war" so it's probably most productive for the discussion from now on to focus on which variant of that is best. Chessrat ^{(talk, contributions)} 12:29, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

• E As above (unless/until a common name becomes prevalent). Drsruli (talk) 13:20, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

• Comment Question for everyone who selected option E, is there a reason for the nonstandard process of describing a war that has taken place in two years by only one of those years? There aren't any other examples of such a naming system being used on Wikipedia- wars covering multiple years are never disambiguated by using only the start year. Chessrat ^{(talk, contributions)} 15:56, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

  It is simply too soon; we need to wait a bit and see how reliable sources will name it. Marokwitz (talk) 23:06, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

  Reliable sources are already clear that the war has taken place in 2024 as well as 2023. For example https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog-january-1-2024/. Chessrat ^{(talk, contributions)} 04:27, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

• H1 or some other variant of Israel-Palestine war. Besides the fact that there are least six other Palestinian militant groups fighting the IDF in Gaza aside from Hamas, the conflict is very much present in the other Occupied Territories (see fighting in the West Bank). Israel-Palestine doesn't encompass the conflict spread in Syria, Lebanon, and the Red Sea, but it's still much better than the almost ludicrously inaccurate Israel-Hamas title. CarmenEsparzaAmoux (talk) 17:18, 1 January 2024 (UTC)
• N: 2023–present Israel–Hamas war The title should emphasize that this is ongoing and the target is Hamas. Everyone else targeted is targeted for harboring Hamas, supporting Hamas, or sadly just getting in the way. A would be second choice. Richard-of-Earth (talk) 08:19, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

• Comment An attempt at summarizing the things that there is consensus for, to help out whoever closes this. There are currently 49 voters in total. Of those, 13 have voted for something different to a variation of "Israel-Hamas war"; the rest have suggested variations of "Israel-Hamas war". As a result, I would say there is a consensus to continue to use some variation of "Israel-Hamas war". 14 of the 49 voters have voted for not labelling any year in the title at all, so I would say there is consensus against using a title with only the name and no year. 15 of the 49 voters have voted for having the only year label being "2023" (options E/J) so I would say there is a consensus against having 2023 as the only labelled year in the title. Of the remaining options left, A is the only one which there is more than a single vote for, so it seems to me that A would be the most reasonable compromise option. Chessrat ^{(talk, contributions)} 09:43, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

• Anything but B, D, E or K, all of which imply the war happened entirely in 2023 or are too vague (this is the fifth major flareup between Israel and Hamas since 2007). Slight preference for using Gaza over Hamas, because it is not only Hamas that Israel is fighting, and because at this point the infobox implies that the casualties on the Palestinian side are all Hamas, even though the overwhelming majority are not. —M3ATH (See · Say) 11:21, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

• B, It makes the most sense and it's what the Media uses. No need to convolute it. Alexysun (talk) 20:37, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

• D, but B could work too. Professor Penguino (talk) 02:37, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

• H2. The war is affecting the entire region. We didn't call the Iraq war the "Ba'ath war" or the "G.O.P. war". Hamas is not an appropriate synecdoche for Palestine. Ergo H2. (2023–2024) is fine, or with some variant of "ongoing". Jikybebna (talk) 10:49, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

References

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Close this RM and create a new section

Comment - I think we should close this discussion- which is getting extremely unwieldy with no consensus whatsoever- and split it up into the two (merged the third into the second) points of contention:

1. What should we call the war? Currently there are three proposals:

A. Israel–Hamas War, currently used but of NPOV contention due to the contended point of mixing in a state entity with a political party.

B. Israel–Gaza War, which is what I support due to the wider presence of the war being against Gaza as a whole.

C. Israel–Palestine War, which is what some editors have been suggesting due to violence in the West Bank and Israel itself, but I disagree due to the lack of the Palestinian Authority/Fatah fighting.

D. Added by Kashmiri: Gaza War along with one of the date options below; this format would align with Vietnam War, Iraq War, Kosovo War, etc. — kashmīrī ^TALK

2. What should be the date represented?

a. 2023, before the title. I see a lot of people propose to just keep the past year, which seems inaccurate to me.

b. (2023–present), after the title What I think is the best option.

c. (2023–2024), after the title Suggested as well, but on a bleak note, who knows for sure that this war is going to end in 2024?

d. No date at all. Some say that this war is so massive and unique that no date is needed, the same way we don't have a date for Russian Invasion of Ukraine. I don't know how true this is.

We then can decide on a consensus for both parts (or figure out if there is any consensus at all). I'm sure latter we can figure out a consensus, even if the first might take a longer time. Thoughts? HadesTTW (he/him • talk) 05:35, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Using the same uppercase alphabet for all three options will get confusing. As for the first part, the war itself, I slightly prefer C ("Palestine") over B ("Gaza"), while A is right out.

Bombing a city and saying it's because you're at war with one party in that region is not usual. We don't refer to most other wars that way. It's not the Vietcong war, the Republicans war, the Taliban war. There are exceptions (Napoleon comes to mind) but it's certainly extraordinary and not NPOV.

That's way more important than specifics around the date representation, which I don't care about one hundredth as much. However, it's not the first time there has been war there. "(2023–2024)" is good, or "(ongoing)".

(Hence why I supported H2 above.)

Jikybebna (talk) 11:08, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Comment Agreed with splitting the discussion up. There at least appears to be overall consensus for 1A (Israel-Hamas war) with a comfortable majority of editors supporting sticking with that, so I'm not sure further discussion of that is needed. Part 2 there is no consensus for but I would say B is the most likely compromise option to pass. I agree 2A shouldn't be seen as a good option- currently 2024 Dahieh attack is absurdly described in its infobox as "part of 2023 Israel–Hamas war". Part 3 is the least important one but in the event of 2B being chosen I would also suggest 3B as "2023–present Israel–Hamas war" feels unwieldy to me. Chessrat ^{(talk, contributions)} 12:04, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

This split would make much more sense. Above, many commenters only addressed one of these three questions, and possibly voted for an option due to strong views on one of these questions but not the other two (so that their preference on one of the questions can reach consensus). However, for question 3, I think MoS and common practice are unanimous: if it's a single year, it goes before; if it's a range, it goes after and in parentheses (and "no date" is redundant with question 2). In other words, Q3 shouldn't be asked because the correct answer straightforwardly follows from what people pick on question 2. DFlhb (talk) 13:27, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

I also agree that the discussion should be split into two or three RM discussion done in succession. We should take up question 3 first (actually skip question per DFlhb), then question 2 second, and question 1 last. This will take us at least 2-3 weeks but that is fine. Note, I think changing to either 1B or 1C is the most important but I'm fine waiting till the end of the month for us to actually have that discussion in earnest. --- C&C (Coffeeandcrumbs) 15:15, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Actually, having looked into other examples of articles, it seems like the universally used format on Wikipedia for multi year ongoing wars is "(X–present)". See Yemeni civil war (2014–present), Ethiopian civil conflict (2018–present), War in Sudan (2023–present), etc. Given how much of a mess the current RM is, would it not make sense just to close it as "no consensus", move the article from 2023 Israel–Hamas war to Israel–Hamas war (2023–present) per standard Wikipedia policy for the disambiguation of multiple-year wars, and then start a new more structured RM? After all, had it not been for the timing of this RM, I expect that that move would have non-controversially happened already: the move of 2023 attacks on U.S. bases in Iraq and Syria to Attacks on U.S. bases in Iraq and Syria (2023–present), for example, was done unilaterally and it seems standard to do so. In hindsight I think it was a mistake to raise several different questions in an RM shortly before an uncontroversial technical change to the title would have happened with the new year- it would have been far better to wait until after the new year to do it. Chessrat ^{(talk, contributions)} 16:20, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Articles Mexican–American War, Iran–Iraq War, Russo-Ukrainian War, Syrian civil war and Soviet–Afghan War do not use "(X–present)". Parham wiki (talk) 16:37, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Sorry, I intended to imply where disambiguation is necessary. If the only options from the original list of options which are actually in line with Wikipedia standard policy are A, B, C, D, G, and K, then it simplifies things a lot, and the hypothetical new RM would only have to answer "do we want to change Israel–Hamas to Israel–Gaza/Israel–Palestine" and "should the parenthetical disambiguation be removed". Which is much simpler than what the discussion so far has been. Chessrat ^{(talk, contributions)} 16:44, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Sorry, I intended to imply where disambiguation is necessary. I'm sorry, I didn't understand the meaning of the above comment. Parham wiki (talk) 16:48, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

In other words: where parenthetical disambiguation is determined necessary for articles on multi-year ongoing wars, it always follows the format of "(X–present)" after the article name. Chessrat ^{(talk, contributions)} 17:29, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

@Chessrat: No, I understood this, I meant that I misunderstood this comment:

Actually, having looked into other examples of articles, it seems like the universally used format on Wikipedia for multi year ongoing wars is "(X–present)". See Yemeni civil war (2014–present), Ethiopian civil conflict (2018–present), War in Sudan (2023–present), etc. Given how much of a mess the current RM is, would it not make sense just to close it as "no consensus", move the article from 2023 Israel–Hamas war to Israel–Hamas war (2023–present) per standard Wikipedia policy for the disambiguation of multiple-year wars, and then start a new more structured RM? After all, had it not been for the timing of this RM, I expect that that move would have non-controversially happened already: the move of 2023 attacks on U.S. bases in Iraq and Syria to Attacks on U.S. bases in Iraq and Syria (2023–present), for example, was done unilaterally and it seems standard to do so. In hindsight I think it was a mistake to raise several different questions in an RM shortly before an uncontroversial technical change to the title would have happened with the new year- it would have been far better to wait until after the new year to do it. Parham wiki (talk) 18:05, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

I agree that 2B is the standard way we disambiguate multi-year events, and it should naturally be moved to that, since we're already disambiguating by year. Then we can hold a more straightforward RM on whether to keep or remove the disambiguation. The RM failed because people tried to propose non-standard ways to disambiguate, but messy contentious pages are the worst place to do that. Just do what we always do.

I also agree with C&C on asking these questions sequentially, to keep each discussion organised and focused. - DFlhb (talk) 01:13, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

• B calling it Hamas war is not NPOV. Majority of Gazans killed are not Hamas members or militants. ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 14:49, 6 January 2024 (UTC)
• b, c, a in that order of preference. d is outright confusing. ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 14:49, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

• Support B Israel-Gaza War (or the other way about) since at least WAPO/BBC/Guardian/AJ/UN refer to it like that and it is just the latest installment of the Gaza-Israel conflict, same old conflict in new clothes. Date should be per usual practice.Selfstudier (talk) 15:20, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
• A, d - Majority of sources consider this a war between Israel and Hamas (with involvement from other groups) because Israel declared war on Hamas not Gaza nor Palestine. Additionally if Israel-Hamas war is already a redirect then we should just adopt that name as it is unambiguous enough. Dazzling4 (talk) 20:13, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

  Yeah, and because G. W. Bush declared a "war on terror", then Wikipedia should not call it a war against Iraq or Afghanistan, right?

It maters what this is, not what the invader calls it. — kashmīrī ^TALK 00:40, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

• A - It's well-known that the war is between Hamas and Israel and not between the State of Palestine and Isreal. All the world media call it that way. GreatLeader1945 (talk) 09:27, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

This isn't a survey, we're workshopping - DFlhb (talk) 09:54, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

• A and B make the most sense. It helps differentiate between this conflict and past ones involving the two parties and overall helps differentiate between the various conflicts involving Israel and other Palestinian groups as a whole. PaulRKil (talk) 14:14, 5 January 2024 (UTC)
• 1:A or D (whichever is more popular
• 2:B Abo Yemen✉ 12:50, 6 January 2024 (UTC)
• B or D for the first option, b for the second. Refer to my justification in the closed discussion above. —M3ATH (See · Say) 12:39, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

I don't think we need question one; my reading of this discussion suggests that there exists a consensus to remain with "Israel-Hamas war". BilledMammal (talk) 13:16, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

except that the current name is " 2023 Israel-Hamas war" and not just "Israel-Hamas war" alone (The main reason for this rm is the date/year) Abo Yemen✉ 13:29, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

The closer said there was no consensus and then specifically mentioned the list of options here so let's go with those. The date is less problematic. Selfstudier (talk) 13:35, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

• D and d. Gaza war with no year is the best solution, the most neutral one as well. --Governor Sheng (talk) 14:14, 6 January 2024 (UTC)
• B or D and b, per my reasoning above (NPOV, etc.) "Gaza war" has the advantage of being internally consistent with past articles (e.g. 2014 Gaza war). WillowCity^(talk) 14:33, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

  I'll repeat said reasoning here for the closer's ease of reference:

  I would emphasize ... that WP:COMMONNAME is specifically subject to the requirement of NPOV (like everything else on Wikipedia). The policy states: Neutrality is also considered; see § Neutrality in article titles, below. WP:NPOVNAME allows for a POV title only where the subject is referred to mainly by a single common name, as evidenced through usage in a significant majority of English-language sources (emphasis added). Here, "Israel–Hamas war" may be used by a preponderance of sources, but it is not the single common name, nor is it demonstrably used by a significant majority of sources, and many of the sources that do use it do so alongside other names. The fact that it is the preferred name of one party to the conflict should give us pause.

  Some RS that use Israel–Gaza war (whether exclusively or in addition to I-H war): the BBC, ABC, Al Jazeera, WaPo, The Guardian. Israel–Gaza war is more internally consistent with our other article titles, and there are other armed groups involved, making the current title inaccurate and simultaneously imprecise and overprecise

  While "significant majority" is not defined, I would argue that it is far closer to unanimity than to a simple majority. WillowCity^(talk) 23:35, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

A and b. Israel-Hamas war is still the much more common name in English media: NYT, WSJ, The Telegraph, Reuters, AP, NBC, CNN, The Economist, Times of London, USA Today, Sky, Globe & Mail, France 24, CBS. Guardian, BBC and WaPo seem to be the minority who have gone with or switched to Israel-Gaza, which would be more consistent with our past practice in this conflict area, but that doesn't give us carte blanche to override the common name in reliable sources. (2023-present) is consistent with general practice in conflicts that need a year for disambiguation, and this one certainly does. PrimaPrime (talk) 02:52, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

The fact that WaPo, UN, a few other big names have switch doesn't give us carte blanche to do weird names, but it does gives us external sources, non-OR reasons to switch to the name that makes more sense for Wikipedia, even if those sources aren't the 100% majority, when the other name is so odd and so PoV. Jikybebna (talk) 18:52, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

See the policy on POV names - the standard is "significant majority", not "100% majority". In other words, if the balance of sources were around 50:50 we'd be freer to choose, but they're not. PrimaPrime (talk) 19:10, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

• Chiming in to my own discussion to again express support for B and b. Calling the war "against Hamas" is a view that is biased towards Israel and violating Wikipedia NPOV. Israel itself admitted that at least 2 in 3 Palestinians killed in the war are civilians (and according to Gazans themselves, the ratio is much higher), making it clear that Hamas is not receiving the brunt of the attacks and the invasion. Option D is fine as well, but I don't see why Israel should be excluded from the title. HadesTTW (he/him • talk) 20:37, 6 January 2024 (UTC)
• 1: A. There are 22M hits on Google News for "Israel Hamas war" vs 171k for "Israel Gaza war" when I filter only last year's news. This is clearly the common name.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Alaexis (talk • contribs)
  • See WP:GOOGLEHITS. Also, the large numbers shown on top of Google Search have nothing to do with actual hits. The number that appears at the top of the first page of search results, "About nnn results", is Google's statistical estimate of how many indexed web pages there might be that match the search terms. It's not a count of actual results.[28]
• 2: b. or d. I'm indifferent between a more commonly used name and a more descriptive one. Alaexis_¿question? 21:42, 6 January 2024 (UTC)
• A and b, per my comments above, WP:NPOVTITLE states that the common name is still prioritised over a NPOV title, although if sources do slowly adopt Israel-Gaza where there is no longer a clear commonname, then a NPOV argument can hold more weight. But clearly Israel-Hamas is still more common as shown in the RM above. Latter choice is the general preferred disambiguator, although not as strong of an opinion on how to disambiguate or whether it needs one at all. Although having the year before indicates a WP:NATURALDAB which needs some usage (i.e. sources stating the "2023 Israel....etc), which I'm not sure it has? DankJae 03:14, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

  Huh. It does say "In such cases, the prevalence of the name, or the fact that a given description has effectively become a proper name (and that proper name has become the common name), generally overrides concern that Wikipedia might appear as endorsing one side of an issue". What a weird policy. Jikybebna (talk) 18:57, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

• 1B and 2B per WP:AT's 5 criteria for deciding on an article title: (1) Recognizability, (2) Naturalness, (3) Precision, (4) Concision and (5) Consistency. Israel–Gaza War is the title that fits these criteria the most. --- C&C (Coffeeandcrumbs) 06:00, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

• 1B2b Israel-Gaza war is more reflective of the fact that the conflict is against Gaza as a whole. The vast majority of casualties are Gazan civilians and Israel has stated its intentions to occupy Gaza after the war. 2b because it's the standard for wars on Wikipedia. ArthropodLover (talk) 18:24, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

• 1B and 2B: "Israel-Gaza War (2023-present)". The overwhelmingly vast majority of the people killed by the Israeli military are civilians, not Hamas members, so this title would be much more NPOV. David A (talk) 19:09, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
• 2D (If there is no consensus on option 1D): Only name. The article Siege of Mariupol is not called Siege of Mariupol (2022) because of the Battle of Mariupol (1919). Per WP:TITLEDAB, disambiguation is only necessary when there is otherwise an actual conflict in article titles. No such conflict in titles exists. Per WP:CONCISE, concision is preferred over unnecessary precision. not only is there still no other article titled Israel–Hamas war, Israel–Gaza war and Israel–Palestine war, but even if there was, this article is unequivocally still the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. Per WP:NHC, statements that contradict policy should be discounted. 2A, 2B and 2C Votes do not address the prevailing policy but largely make a simple statement that other wars exist. While things can change, this does not mean that they will change. For the present (and the foreseeable future), the 2D option is supported by policy. Also Israel–Hamas war redirects to this article. Parham wiki (talk) 21:33, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

Keep as is/A - "Israel–Hamas war" is the clear WP:COMMONNAME as used by CNN[29], NBC[30], the AP[31], the NYT[32], etc. Even if it's non-neutral, WP:POVNAME applies. Regarding option "B", "Gaza" is neither a political entity nor group. The war isn't between Israel and a strip of land, is it? Trying to change the title to reflect that most killed aren't members of Hamas screams WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS. estar8806 (talk) ★ 22:49, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

• 1B 2B 1B as the vast majority of the fighting has been against Gaza, moreso than Hamas per se. 2B per norm DarmaniLink (talk) 01:21, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

Palestinian casualties per Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor

I have moved the casualty figures of Gaza Strip from Gaza Health Ministry to Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor per WP:BRD. My rationale for the move is that the data of Gaza Health Ministry was interrupted for several days during the conflict and was not updated for certain periods. Also, E-MHRM appears to be a more neutral, reliable source which is being cited by UN OCHA. Ecrusized (talk) 15:05, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

I'm afraid their total figure is altogether possible though I think their number for women killed is probably much too low and their number for children is probably a bit high. The real problem though is the figures from the Gaza Health Ministry are well documented though much too low now, whereas these figures don't have anywhere such a solid basis. Perhaps we could give both figures? NadVolum (talk) 17:10, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

I believe E-MHRM is including the missing as killed, the GHM had said that 70% of the missing were women or children, so the figures are fairly close to one another. Ecrusized (talk) 17:46, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

That actually sounds right, pessimistic, but probably close to true. Where are you getting this though, can you give an exact link?

I've been wondering for a while

Irtapil (talk) 05:30, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Then I would list Gaza MOH, and give it as a minium? Specify it includes only identified dead and there are periods where reporting was interrupted.

Also including both the Lancet articles that show the data is not an over estimate "No evidence of inflation…" and the identification details being provided appear to be real data "No evidence of fabrication…" I think I've already linked them? But I misspoke and said they were October when at least one was more recent. Sorry, I'm having a lot of trouble following the conversations on a small screen.

The UN is sort of authoritative, but I think they just pass on national stats? (e.g. The WHO is still reporting so covid deaths in DPRK and Turkmenistan.)

Irtapil (talk) 03:47, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

But why would they be higher? Where could they be getting date? Are they an extrapolating an estimated real number, rather than Gaza listing identicalied individuals as a minimum? Irtapil (talk) 05:27, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

I would highly dispute the characterization of Euromed Monitor as more reliable than the Gazan health authorities. How has it arrived at a supposedly exact number of civilians killed when Hamas and its health ministry have been almost totally silent on the issue?

The press release doesn't say, and reliable media sources don't seem to be quoting the group - which given its liberal use of the word "genocide", is very clearly a Palestinian activist NGO and thus hardly more neutral than the health ministry, which at least has the benefit of being actually in charge of whatever is left of the hospital and morgue system.

Certainly for an infobox, whenever such an "official" figure is available we should probably tilt toward that over the claims of an NGO which can be included in the article text if appropriate.

Nevertheless if you presume the 7,000 "missing" announced by the health ministry are dead, maybe add in the 1,000 Israel says it killed on Oct. 7, then the topline figure of around 29,000 is plausible. Thus the main problem I see at the moment is the lack of reliable sources to support the exact civilian/militant breakdown, which could arguably violate NPOV. PrimaPrime (talk) 19:36, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

If EMHRM is indeed a Palestinian NGO, I had assumed that it would be more neutral than the Hamas run Gaza health ministry. A problem with the GHM tolls is that there were certain periods in the war, where they stopped updating their tally, and explained in their reports that due to the deteriorating health situation in Gaza, the toll could not be counted. Another positive the EMHRM has is that it gives an official account on the number of civilians killed, which allows the article the separate the civilian and combatant death toll. Ecrusized (talk) 19:58, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

Their claimed number of civilians killed is of course anything but "official". Have you found any reliable news sources citing the claim? PrimaPrime (talk) 20:10, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

My point is, when you compare it to Hamas figures, it is probably more reliable. I don't know how reliable that monitor is, but I saw it being cited by UN OCHA. What I would like to do in the infobox is separate civilian and military tolls, because it is really unusual to count them together. Perhaps the figure of killed militants from the EMHRM could be cited as pro-Palestinian, and then we could place a the Israeli claim about the number of militants killed. Similar to the infobox of 2006 Lebanon War. Ecrusized (talk) 20:18, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

Yes, it would indeed be vastly preferable to go by civilians and combatants as opposed to age, gender and especially occupation as at present. I'm sure butchers, bakers and candlestick makers have also been killed - on both sides - but that has no bearing on whether they were, at time of death, a combatant or a civilian.

There's a reason we don't list the number of Israeli women killed, and it's not just because the IDF helpfully claims all its female casualties. It's because we need to follow NPOV. PrimaPrime (talk) 20:38, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

I don't think that EMHRM is much more reliable than Gaza Health Ministry. The head of EMHRM Ramy Abdo used to lead an organisation described as a Belgian non-profit organisation that lobbies on behalf of the Hamas-led Gaza Government. Another senior member Muhammed Shehada seems to know some Hamas leaders quite well. Alaexis_¿question? 22:50, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

@Ecrusized also, there are two separate Lancet articles saying Gaza MOH is a reliable minimum. One shows "no sign of inflation" the other "no sign of fabrication". I'll find them when I turn on my PC. Irtapil (talk) 01:15, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

Israel–Hamas war
Location {{{place}}}
Casualties and losses
2,418 militants killed (Palestinian estimate) 8,000 militants killed (Israeli estimate)	571 servicemen killed

Don't you mean verifiability instead of NPOV? There shouldn't be a neutrality issue here. Also, I would support adding Israeli casualty details in the in line note, whether they are women or elders etc.

Would you support an infobox, similar to this? Ecrusized (talk) 20:46, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

Still not sure how I feel about moving all the civilian casualties on both sides down into casualties3 at this point but this is a start. PrimaPrime (talk) 21:04, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

One way to deal with it is by adding two separate accounts divided by a long dash, with the in line note stating which account is reported by which source. I have added this on my sandbox, User:Ecrusized/sandbox. If you like it you can copy paste the entire code into the template and save. Ecrusized (talk) 21:24, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

The main problems I see there are OR/SYNTH - for example we can't list the undifferentiated Gaza health ministry total as a low "civilian" estimate. PrimaPrime (talk) 22:57, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

Agreed. It does raise certain synth issues. I suppose it's best to group civilian and military tolls together for the time being then. Ecrusized (talk) 09:37, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

Although, I remember the GHM tolls being cited as only including civilians, I cannot find the said source right now. This should be accurate since GHM says the 70% of all casualties are women and children. One way to deal with it would be to add the GHM toll as civilian casualties, without listing EM monitor. But then again, all of this combined creates a mess of verifiability and synthesis. Ecrusized (talk) 09:47, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

We should group them in one topline figure (from GHM) and then put the Euro-Med and IDF estimates of militant casualties in the hatnote, clearly attributed.

The focus on women, journalists etc. is problematic from a POV standpoint as it heavily implies these are civilian casualties without actually verifiable sourcing. The family of any IDF reservist with a blog could call her an independent journalist, but of course neither that fact nor her gender would make her death a civilian casualty. PrimaPrime (talk) 11:38, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

There is no verifiability dispute in writing what the Palestinian side reports as its civilians since the Israeli self reporting is also included. (And trickled down to minors, etc.) Ecrusized (talk) 14:50, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

The Palestinian side hasn't reported any count of civilians - if they did we would obviously be using it. Instead we have counts of other categories people presume to be civilians but which can include some amount of combatants, and unofficial civilian/militant casualty estimates from one of their NGOs on the high end (naturally) and the IDF on the lower end (naturally).

Providing a range with the latter two counts, as you first suggested, is most in line with WP policies and practice. It is very problematic to imply that possible non-civilians are civilians and vice versa. PrimaPrime (talk) 20:15, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

I think we are having some miscommunication here. When I said earlier that I would support adding the breakdown of Israeli civilians into children, paramedics, journalists etc. I did not mean to remove the children/women toll from the inline note of Palestinian casualties. As doing so would not be neutral (since Israeli civilian/servicemembers are separated in the inline note --- but also, the abducted Israeli children are listed in the note under captured Israeli's).

So to sum it up, and make it clear, I would support the current version. I would also support separating the military and civilian casualties for both sides, I have added an example that could be applied into to the template in my sandbox User:Ecrusized/sandbox. However, I was under the notion earlier that you did not support this because of synthesis and verifiability issues. Ecrusized (talk) 22:24, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

I must say I agree with PrimaPrime. Citing the figures given to us by the 'officals' in the war is better than citing numbers from an NGO that as far as I'm aware isn't on the ground in Gaza or Israel. Furthermore, the NGO stats leave out the 'missing' toll.

I don't think it's up to us if the number cited is 'high enough' or 'low enough', it's just to cite the number given to the public until enough reliable sources can counter or support that information.

I think it'd be best if we were to leave the infobox as it was showing just the Gaza Health Ministry toll (as it's 'official') or both and leave specifying the casualties until we have more sources when the war has ended. It's way to early to be citing NGOs and differentiating overall deaths, especially since the recording organisation is currently under siege and being carpet bombed.ThePaganUK (talk) 19:52, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

In fact Euromed itself says on its website that its count includes those classified as missing by the health ministry. PrimaPrime (talk) 20:08, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

Note The E-MHRM has given a figure of total number of Gazan civilians killed, which is 26,706. With that figure, it might be better to stick with the common infobox format, where casualties1 and 2 are reserved for combatants, and casualties3 lists civilians. Only thing is, both Israeli and Palestinian injuries are including military and civilians. I'm not sure how that could be applied if civilian and military casualties are to be separated. Ecrusized (talk) 17:46, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

Have added both Gaza Health Ministry toll and Euro-Med toll. Feel free to change the format of how they're laid out I admit it doesn't look the best. However I think we should have both in the infobox, especially until we can differentiate between military and civilian casualties, which will probably take a while.ThePaganUK (talk) 19:28, 28 December 2023 (UTC) (Nevermind someone edited the infobox before publishing). I still think both tolls should be in the infobox.ThePaganUK (talk) 19:30, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

Where did the value of 2418 for Palestinian militants killed in that box above come from? That's not too far off the number I calculated. NadVolum (talk) 23:25, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

Calculated based on what?

The number is from Euro-Med Monitor, subtracting their civilian count from their total count. PrimaPrime (talk) 00:22, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

Based primarily on the number of men compared to women killed and the statistics of men killed in bombing compared to women. The composition of the population of Gaza is about 30% men, 30% women 37% children 14 or under, and 3% 60 or over and a total population of 2.2 million. The number of militants is perhaps 40 thousand including those not in Hamas, nearly all men.The first 8000 deaths when the health ministry was still operating properly were 35.3% men, 24.1% women, 33.8% children and 6.8% elderley [33]. The percentage of men who are militants would be 40/(22000*0.30) or 6%. The extra men killed to women is 11.2%, adding 6% of 30% for militants killed purely by chance this gives an absolute maximum of 13% of the casualties are militants or in 29000 that gives 3770 killed. However this does not account for women being protected better than men and in bombing type attacks civilian men are killed at least 1.3 times more often than women so we should really expect a base rate of 31.3% deaths amongst men which leads to 3% militants, perhaps with another 1.8% for pure luck that gives 1392. With and extra 1000 for the raid on 7th October that gives about 2400 total. The only way to really bump the figure up higher is to assume that a large proportion of the dead under the rubble are militants but basically I can see no way of approaching the Israeli figures. NadVolum (talk) 12:27, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

@PrimaPrime: I have a new idea on how to separate civilian/military casualties in the infobox, I have saved this on my sandbox: User:Ecrusized/sandbox. Basically, the infobox will list Palestinian and Israeli claims on the number of militants killed, and the casualties3 section will list how many Palestinians have been killed in total. Should we apply this? Ecrusized (talk) 14:24, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

The only ones doing that are the Israelis. Their figures aren't just bad estimates, they're propaganda with little relation to reality. The Palestinian figureis not in the reference cited and they don't even give what they say i the figure for civilians. I guess they can go in the text but please keep them out of an infobox. NadVolum (talk) 15:50, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

I'm having problems with the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor figures. Are they taking children as 18 and below rather than 14 and below like the Gaza Health Ministry does? In which case they're assuming only 25% of the population are men and 25% are women and all the 7 thousand missing would have to be men whereas others have said they're mostly women and children. It's a horrible mess and they just don't say how they arrived at them. NadVolum (talk) 16:46, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

Euro-Med's figures really strain credulity. Today they increased their estimated death toll by 910 and yet somehow the number of non-civilians went down 65.

I think the current infobox with attributed claims is as good as we're going to get for a while - attempting to totally sever civilian/military casualties on the Palestinian side is a minefield of POV, verifiability and OR/SYNTH issues. PrimaPrime (talk) 21:03, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

@PrimaPrime: Where do you find their updated figures and deaths of non-civilians please? The rate of deaths for children should only be a bit higher than that for women. If by children they mean 14 and below like the Gaza Health figures then they're being killed at the rate of 1.6 to 1 compared to women according to the EMHRM figures which just can't be right. I can only make sense of them if they are counting children as 18 and below which would make them 47% of the population and women 25% of the population - which would require them to be doing some major massaging of the Gaza Health Ministry figures. NadVolum (talk) 00:11, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

[34] PrimaPrime (talk) 01:48, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for that. Damn X, can't they find a better channel or stick it on their website. Anyway yes I'll assume children there means 18 or lower. The figure for militants from that is I think probably a bit low but at most by 2000, that could also easily be civilian men missing due to being captured or summarily killed. Anyway the figures don't seem too unbelievable though there's probably a lot of guesswork. NadVolum (talk) 11:50, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

Jenin Battalion are PIJ ?

The giant footnote in the belligerents says "Jenin Battalion" are Al-Aqsa Martyrs, but the only "Jenin Battalionn I have ever heard of are PIJ, a division of Saraya Al-Quds (Al-Quds Brigades). But it is plausible that both groups have a battalion in Jenin or that it is a combined group, so I wanted to check before changing it? Irtapil (talk) 09:50, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

Lions' Den (militant group) is another possibility which is linked but not exclusively PIJ. ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 12:10, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

This paragraph doesn't fit in Israeli Policy

"The Associated Press wrote that Palestinians are "in despair over a never-ending occupation in the West Bank and suffocating blockade of Gaza." Several human rights organizations, including Amnesty International, B'Tselem and Human Rights Watch have likened the Israeli occupation to apartheid, although supporters of Israel dispute this characterization. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported roughly 6,400 Palestinians and 300 Israelis were killed in the wider Israeli–Palestinian conflict from 2008 through September 2023 before the start of this war."

Should this not shift to Humanitarian Crisis and not under the Israeli Policy section? Chavmen (talk) 12:15, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

I think it should be left as is. The paragraph has to do with the background to the war (i.e., the broader historical context), not the humanitarian impact as a consequence of the war. So it is appropriate for the background section. Since the occupation and the apartheid are Israeli policies, the this would be most appropriate for the Israeli policy heading. JDiala (talk) 12:31, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

@Chavmen

Is there somewhere else it would fit better? Irtapil (talk) 16:16, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

@Chavmen Sorry I didn't see the other bit of the message. It doesn't belong in humanitarian crisis because that's the current situation. That's more about the situation before the conflict escalated. Irtapil (talk) 16:19, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

Okay thanks. I see what you are saying. It just isn't "technically" Israeli policy so seems out of place. It definitely needs to be in background but wanted to see if others thought somewhere more appropriate in this section. Chavmen (talk) 22:20, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

Hey, I just noticed it has been moved up to be the first paragraph under Israeli policy - and this now definitely doesn't suit. Would be more fitting in the "escalation" section.

The paragraph is commentary and not specific to Israeli policy. Even in the first sentence:

"Numerous commentators have identified the broader context of Israeli occupation as a cause of the war." It then goes on to an AP article and various human rights organisations weighing in on occupation and apartheid.

It isn't specific to Israeli policy per se and we should be differentiating between policy and commentary. Chavmen (talk) 22:30, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

After reading the background several times now, the 1st paragraph under Israeli policy would be more suitable as the last paragraph (or integrated into the last paragraph) of the Background section. It does not belong under Israeli policy. Happy to do this if @JDiala and @Irtapil agree. Chavmen (talk) 01:01, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

The occupation is clearly Israeli policy. I'm not sure I follow the distinction you're trying to make. JDiala (talk) 06:19, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

Well, it technically may be but Israeli officials deny occupation and deny illegality and condemn the UN and other organisations for saying so.

So this is my point - Israeli officials do not admit this being policy per se and this section is titled "Israeli policy". Hence, the paragraph needs to be moved either up to the background section or down to the escalation section.

I think the background section is more suitable.

[35][36][37] Chavmen (talk) 09:11, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

Also here [38] Chavmen (talk) 09:16, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

I'm not sure the fact that Israelis deny it is particularly relevant. We go by what WP:RS say in determining what Israeli policy actually is, not what the Israeli government says which is obviously biased. JDiala (talk) 13:00, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

Got to agree with that. We can refer to what Israel say as "Israel's declared policy". NadVolum (talk)

Next step: Adding "genocide" to the "Israeli Policy" section?

You cannot just add something to a section just because you think it WP:CLEARLY belongs there, based on your own opinions. You need sources that call it policy. --Hob Gadling (talk) 20:01, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

Sources abound below as to the disposition of Israeli officials and how it is seen internationally. ClaudeReigns (talk) 23:27, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

Do those unnamed sources explicitly call it "policy"? --Hob Gadling (talk) 08:44, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

@JDiala, you also moved the paragraph in question to the top of the Israeli policy section without consensus here in Talk. At the very least we should start with declared Israeli policy. This would then follow the format of Hamas motivations - starting with Hamas stated motivations then commentary. Chavmen (talk) 21:53, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

@Chavmen Sure, I can accept your argument regarding the paragraph placement. The edit has since been reverted. JDiala (talk) 22:06, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

Awesome! Chavmen (talk) 23:12, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

United States should not be a belligerent

Come on. This is ridiculous. There's a stark distinction between providing material and logistic support and being actively engaged in hostilities. JDiala (talk) 12:59, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

What exactly are you referring to? NadVolum (talk) 13:17, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

The infobox. JDiala (talk) 13:18, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

I've removed it, in line with the lack of consensus at Talk:2023 Israel–Hamas_war#RfC - Infobox Adding Belligerents. BilledMammal (talk) 13:22, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

I agree that the US should not be listed as a belligerent (in the same way that the US, UK, and Europe are not listed in the Russian invasion of Ukraine), however, I think there is a reasonable amount of RS now in US special forces in Gaza looking for hostages (Times of Israel, New York Times), which might be worth mentioning in the body text (not lede) to clarify things for readers. Aszx5000 (talk) 18:53, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Aerial bombardment on "Hamas targets"

The lead states "the Israeli military retaliated by conducting an extensive aerial bombardment campaign on Hamas targets, followed by a large-scale ground invasion of Gaza." This assumes however the Israeli narrative that only Hamas targets are being attacked (not civilian) and is thus (in my view) a WP:NPOV violation.

There is significant independent evidence suggesting Israel is deliberately bombing civilians. See e.g., [39] and [40].

I suggest replacing "on Hamas targets" with the more simple (and more neutral) "on Gaza." JDiala (talk) 15:54, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

 Done Parham wiki (talk) 16:13, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

The sources you presented are considered biased from what I know. +972 is known for being biased [41][42], and there is a lot of literature on bias [43],[44]. Homerethegreat (talk) 15:07, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

RfC on genocide accusation in lead

Should allegations of genocide be mentioned in the lead? There are four options in my mind.

1. Mention that Israel is accused of genocide.
2. Mention that Hamas is accused of genocide.
3. Mention that Israel and Hamas are both accused of genocide.
4. Make no mention of genocide at all.

JDiala (talk) 08:57, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

Survey (genocide accusation in lead)

• Option D - Wiki is supposed to be low key and not a propaganda tool. The claims about genocide are important, but definitely not in the lead of the article. It is about the war, not about political claims. Agmonsnir (talk) 09:16, 2 January 2024 (UTC)
• Option C In the case of Israel, accusations of genocide have been serious enough for south Africa to formally accuse Israel of committing genocide by taking the claim to the International Court of Justice.
  1. https://www.reuters.com/world/south-africa-seeks-international-court-justice-genocide-order-against-israel-2023-12-29/
  2. https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-01-01/ty-article/.premium/state-officials-fear-hauge-could-charge-israel-with-genocide-in-gaza/0000018c-c1a9-d3e0-abac-d9a9acd80000

  At the same time, only talking about Israel could spark talks of neutrality. But since there have been just as many people ready to accuse Hamas of genocide, there are rs that talk about this too. One eample is: https://www.timesofisrael.com/hamas-actions-are-war-crimes-could-constitute-genocide-international-law-experts/ Genabab (talk) 10:07, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

  Times of Israel is not a neutral source in this matter (especially that the paper, and its owner, have an overtly right-wing agenda – see the article). — kashmīrī ^TALK 20:04, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

• Option C A significant number of legal scholars and professionals have indicated that what is taking place is genocidal in nature (both for Israel and Hamas). Further, there is an ICJ case brought forth by South Africa against Israel. Lastly, as a point of comparison, note that the term "genocide" is used in the lead to the Russian Invasion of Ukraine article as well. The Israel-Hamas war is significantly worse with respect to genocidal rhetoric used by leaders and the magnitude of the civilian suffering. JDiala (talk) 10:19, 2 January 2024 (UTC)
• Option C: As well as being shown by their actions reliable sources clearly document enough statements of genocidal intent on the part of the Israeli government and call it that. Hamas has shown genocidal intent so it can be included as a counter even if there's no way for it to carry any such intention out, certainly not in the current war. The issue has become widespread and important enough for inclusion in the lead. NadVolum (talk) 10:18, 2 January 2024 (UTC)
• Option C per above. Whether or not genocide occurs is a salient feature of war. Parham wiki (talk) 10:49, 2 January 2024 (UTC)
• Option C per above. The most sensible option at this stage. Aszx5000 (talk) 12:21, 2 January 2024 (UTC)
• Option D - As above; this is not the place for it. Drsruli (talk) 17:02, 2 January 2024 (UTC)
• Option D - It's standard for partisans in a totalizing ethnic conflict to hurl the term "genocide" at each other. Doesn't automatically merit inclusion in the lede without e.g. actual criminal prosecutions.

PrimaPrime (talk) 21:25, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

Comment: This is incorrect. There is an ongoing case in the ICJ, as the article itself states (in the body). In general, I recommend doing the most basic amount of research on the topic before hurling accusations at others, especially for topics as sensitive as this. JDiala (talk) 06:24, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

• Option D Far from significant enough at this stage to include these dueling charges in the lead. Coretheapple (talk) 22:05, 2 January 2024 (UTC)
• Option C people undoubtedly come to Wikipedia looking for clarity/information, and we're well equipped/trusted to provide an accurate summary of the political discussions happening with detailed wikilinks where necessary. ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 12:07, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
• Option D I don't think the accusations have been sufficiently noteworthy to justify inclusion in the lede. The accusations would need to feature far more prominently in the reliable sources for me to support adding it to the lede. Especially since we're not including things like the accusations of sexual violence by Hamas against Israeli civilians, which has been discussed far more in the reliable sources than these genocide accusations have (my point being that if that doesn't meet the prominence threshold for inclusion in the lede, then the genocide accusations shouldn't if we're applying the same threshold). Chuckstablers (talk) 19:39, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

Comment This comparison is not quite accurate in my view. The Hamas sexual assault allegation is to the 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel article what the genocide allegation is to the 2023 Israel-Hamas War article. The sexual assault allegations pertain to only a single day in the conflict (October 7th), and indeed they are mentioned in the lead to the article for that single day in the conflict. The relevance of the sexual assault allegation to the war in general (which has lasted for 3 months now) is less clear. However, the genocide allegation does in fact pertain to the entire war. JDiala (talk) 06:37, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

• Option A. Extremely well sourced, including legal positions of South Africa and a number of respected international organisations. On the other hand, genocide accusations against Hamas are not widely circulated outside of Israeli government mouthpieces – unlike with regard to Israeli policies, no expert international sources describe Hamas as carrying out a genocide of Jews. — kashmīrī ^TALK 20:00, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
• Option A. Not only is there the recent legal application by South Africa, but so have UN experts, legal experts, Palestinian human rights organizations, prominent Israelis, scholars and practitioners of international law, conflict studies and genocide studies, and genocide scholars, to name a few. I'd say that's enough for inclusion. In fact, some information could be copied over from the Allegations of genocide in the 2023 Israeli attack on Gaza into this page and placed in the lead. It would be relatively easy to do.Historyday01 (talk) 14:06, 5 January 2024 (UTC)
• Option D is my personal preference. There are accusations against both Israel and Hamas [45]. My personal preference is not to mention it in the lede. Hamas might have had a genocidal intent but killing one thousand people out of several million is not a genocide. Likewise, Israel might have considered an ethnic cleansing of the Gaza Strip, but it doesn't seem to be likely to happen atm and it's not the same as genocide anyway. I suggest waiting at least a few months until we have something more definite. Alaexis_¿question? 14:29, 5 January 2024 (UTC)
• Option Wikipedia is not a democracy: Lede serves as a summary of the body, including any prominent controversies, per guideline Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lead section. A vote, or survey, or any other phrasing will not get around this guideline; what is mentioned in body must be mentioned in lede. However, the 7 October genocide section suffers from extreme examples of synth and sources closely related to the subject, in which information is combined to make an argument not necessarily related to the war. While the Israeli campaign genocide section is well-sourced and has an ongoing ICJ court case. The latter claim clearly has more merit and it should not be made equivalent with the former one when these sections are summarized in the lede. Makeandtoss (talk) 15:01, 5 January 2024 (UTC)
• Option C or D. A and B are obvious non-starters - read the articles Allegations of genocide in the 2023 Hamas attack on Israel and Allegations of genocide in the 2023 Israeli attack on Gaza. Both articles have good sources, and both accusations need to be treated the same (although Hamas has explicitly announced their intended genocide beforehand many times and Israel has done no such thing). --Hob Gadling (talk) 16:25, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

  Disagree in strongest terms. Israel has been accused of carrying out genocide. Per the linked article, Hamas has been accused of having "genocidal intentions" (John Kirby), "genocidal ideology" (Israeli diplomat), and similar, however no serious source has stated that the 7th October attack was tantamount to genocide. No, the two sides cannot and should not be treated on a par. — kashmīrī ^TALK 20:02, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

  Reality check: They have not been accused of having "genocidal intentions", they actually said themselves that they have those intentions. You know, like that Hitler guy of whom people said he did not actually intend to do it? Hamas has little attacking power, of course they cannot actually achieve it - at the moment. But there should be a consensus among non-denialists that the intention is there. --Hob Gadling (talk) 12:37, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

  Read the linked articles first. The survey is about genocide, not about Palestinian politicians chanting "Death to Israel", etc. You'll need extremely strong sourcing to claim that Hamas's policy was to kill every single Israeli. Unlike in case of Israel, which has been accused of indiscriminate killings of Palestinians over years. — kashmīrī ^TALK 00:16, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

• Option A. Israel has been accused of genocide in a damning 84-page filing at the UN's highest court; these types of ICJ proceedings have been instituted quite rarely since the 1948 Convention. This is an extremely notable development in the context of the larger war. In contrast, the October 7 genocide claims have been trotted out by Israel and its ally, the US, as a form of mirror politics which should not be lent any further credence. The disparity in coverage, the disparity in legitimacy, and the WP:FALSEBALANCE issues of this approach should be obvious. WillowCity^(talk) 22:10, 5 January 2024 (UTC)
• it is genocide - I think it would be wrong to say "accusation" because that implies a lack of credibility, but I cannot think of a better word. Possibly just "credible accusation". Irtapil (talk) 20:27, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

  Are you saying that you have sources saying that every Palestinian in the Northern part of Gaza, which is controlled by Israel, is either dead or in extermination camps? Or are you saying that the article should be based on your opinion, in violation of WP:OR? --Hob Gadling (talk) 12:35, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

  I suggest you first read the legal definition of genocide before posting such dumb comments. Obviously, Irtapil did not say so, it's just you using a straw man argument, which amounts to manipulation in a discussion. — kashmīrī ^TALK 00:10, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

Blockade

The sentence that has recently been restored is inaccurate and not suitable for the lede in my opinion: The war has led to a severe humanitarian crisis in Gaza due to cut off of food, water and 'anything which is necessary for any sort of life' by Israel.

The first part is not controversial. The war has indeed led to a severe humanitarian crisis. However the second part is misleading as "cutting off" implies that no food, water, or 'anything which is necessary for any sort of life' has been delivered to Gaza ever since the war started. This is untrue: the food deliveries commenced on October 21 and every day 100-200 trucks enter Gaza [46], the water started flowing before October 29 [47], while the fuel was delivered to Gaza starting from November 15 [48]. I believe that the previous wording (low and irregular flow of food and other humanitarian supplies, per UNRWA) is much more accurate. Alaexis_¿question? 09:35, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

Agreed. BilledMammal (talk) 10:20, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

Hi, the quoted phrase is from this article [49] attributed to Christian Lindmeier, World Health Organization spokesperson.

The next paragraph also says the below but we haven't included that in the lede as far as I can see:

"Israel maintains that it is doing its best to focus its fire only on legitimate Hamas targets but that the group has deliberately placed its military and administrative assets amid the civilian population, effectively using the people as human shields." Chavmen (talk) 10:22, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

It also says this:

"The WHO spokesman noted that people were receiving less than two liters of water per day instead of the seven liters per person per day needed to fulfill their basic needs."

So picking one phrase from the entire article isn't doing any justice to accuracy. I would say a re-phrase is necessary.

I also am not familiar with VOAnews as a source. Chavmen (talk) 10:25, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

I suggest restoring the previous version (The war has led to a severe humanitarian crisis in Gaza due to low and irregular flow of food and other humanitarian supplies). It mentions the general crisis and some specifics without making the impression that Gaza Strip has been completely cut off.

@Chavmen, this is the Voice of America. As a US government-funded source it has its biases, but in this case they are simply quoting UNRWA. It wasn't I who added this source to the article btw, if needed we can find other sources reporting on this. Alaexis_¿question? 12:26, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification @Alaexis. I agree restoring the version you mention. Chavmen (talk) 13:21, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

I agree,

I think the full context regarding the flow of humintarian supplies should be presented if we go into specifics since it does not present the full context, videos of food stolen from civilians in the strip by Hamas etc [50] [51] Homerethegreat (talk) 14:57, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

I think attributing that this low and irregular aid is caused by Israel is important. By all accounts, Egypt and the international community has been very much in favor of bringing lots of food into Gaza Strip (with trucks lined up waiting to get in[52]). HRW says "Israeli forces are deliberately blocking the delivery of water, food, and fuel, while willfully impeding humanitarian assistance". Likewise CNN reports "Israel’s complete siege and restrictions on aid entering Gaza have diminished drug supplies." AP says Israel " blocked food, water and other supplies except for a trickle of aid from Egypt that aid workers say falls far short of what’s needed." Israel is being accused of man made famine (The Atlantic, Tufts University professor whose written a book on famines) VR _talk 05:42, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

Definitely extremely important.

Another important bit is water, last i heard, they had bate minimum drinking water ration and none at all to wash?

Is the mechanism currently being used that they are "inspecting" all of the aid and that is slowing it down? That is my own guess from the gaps in their side of the story, but I've not had time to look at it in detail.

Or are they only letting it in at all via Egypt and it's not getting to the whole strip?

They claim they are "not limiting" it, but it seems to be blocked, but i might be on the song track by assuming they're not just flat out lying?

Irtapil (talk) 21:57, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

It is less restricted than before, but unless there has been a huge change very recently, the is still a huge risk of starvation. The thing i worry about most is sanitation. The 3L water ration is not enough for healthy people, and there being no waster to wash makes staying healthy impossible. If the lack of water to wash leads to GI diseases spreading, that causes dehydration, 3L of water in that situation is a death sentence, you die of dehydration very quickly, particularly kids. If there is not access to enough clear water very soon, there's going to be hundreds of thousands of people dying in horribly. Irtapil (talk) 21:40, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

Palestinian and journalists causalities in the first paragraph

I have moved the Palestinian and journalists causalities to the 1st paragraph since I believe those facts should be mentioned within the context of war significance. Among other things, it explains why Gaza strip "ranks among the most severe in the history of modern warfare". --Mhhossein ^talk 18:56, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

Agreed, first paragraph is there in part to explain the significance of the topic. VR _talk 05:43, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

Genocide draft

On Dec 29 2023, South Africa followed other signatories of the Geneva Convention (sources above) in not only statements condemning a perceived Israeli genocide on Gaza but also launching a case at the International Court of Justice.

In its appeal to the court, South Africa claimed that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza

and that Israel is not acting to punish those inciting to genocide.

Those named in South Africa's International Justice Court filing as inciting to genocide are:

• Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu(Sharon, Jeremy. TOI)(RCP)(Times of India)(NPR)(Awaul, Mohammed. The Daily Star)(Bartov, Omer. NYT)(Financial World ZA)(AJ 23-11-9)(Vox 23-11-13)(gov.il)(various self-pub tweets)
• President Isaac Herzog(Guardian)(ITV)(AJ 23-11-9)
• Defense Minister Yoav Gallant(Sharon, Jeremy. TOI)(TOI 9-Oct-23)(Guardian)(AJ 23-11-9)(Kipa)(self-pub tweets)
• Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir(Sharon, Jeremy. TOI)(MEE)(Arutz Shiva)(ABC News)(Channel 12)
• Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich(Sharon, Jeremy. TOI)(NBC)(TOI 8-Oct-23)(MEM)
• Energy Minister Israel Katz(8-Oct-23 OI)(self-pub tweets)
• Heritage Minister Amihai Eliyahu,(Kan)(TOI Nov-23)(Yedioth Aronoth)(FB self-pub)
• Ag Minister Avi Dichter(Hauenstein, Hanno. Channel 12)
• Deputy Speaker Nissim Vaturi(Opinio Juris)(self-pub tweet)
• COGAT Maj Gen Ghassan Alian(TOI 10-Oct-23)(Bartov, Omer. NYT)(youtube self-pub)
• reservist Maj Gen Giora Eiland,(Bartov, Omer. NYT)(Fathom)(Mako)(Globe)(TOI 6-Nov-23)(Yedioth Aronoth x2)(youtube self-pub)
• reservist Ezra Yachin,(Bazz)(MEE)
• Lt Col [Gilad Kinan],(IDF)
• Prof. [Yair Ben David](MEE)(MEM)(twitter self-pub)
• Col [Yogev BarSheshet],(Now. Channel 14)
• and Col [Erez Eshel].(Now. Channel 14)

“The acts and omissions by Israel complained of by South Africa are genocidal in character because they are intended to bring about the destruction of a substantial part of the Palestinian national, racial and ethnical group,” (Vox)

Israel has rejected South Africa's allegations, accusing it of collaborating with terrorists,(DW) and plans to answer the charges.(PBS)(VOA)

Vox notes South Africa's long-term identification and engagement with Palestine. (Vox. Walsh, Berkley, Foreign Policy Research Institute, 2023)(Mandela 1990)

Likewise the International Criminal Court ruled in 2020 that it has jurisdiction over grave crimes committed in occupied Palestinian territories, and has accepted a suit by Gilles Devers on behalf of the victims' families.(AJ) ClaudeReigns (talk) 00:02, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

And here's what two of those ministers at the Knesset just said. Other representatives there denounced it as like Nazism. NadVolum (talk) 00:36, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

OK Good. Will you add that, please? ClaudeReigns (talk) 05:38, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

I think I'll leave it to stew or someone else to do but the only opposing voice there was from a Arab-Israeli which I think is quite horrific. NadVolum (talk) 09:57, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

I can't disagree. Some democracies, geez. Let's not get incited I mean excited. it's ZA v IL not Tibi v Bibi. ClaudeReigns (talk) 20:15, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

"On 29 December, South Africa filed a case against Israel at the International Court of Justice, alleging that Israel's conduct amounted to genocide. South Africa asked the ICJ to issue provisional measures, including ordering Israel to halt its military campaign in Gaza." - What is currently in the article and appropriate to include per NPOV.

Your draft, if added, would be in my opinion a violation of our NPOV policy and would almost certainly be reverted. Particulary it violates this portion of the NPOV policy:

"An article should not give undue weight to minor aspects of its subject but should strive to treat each aspect with a weight proportional to its treatment in the body of reliable, published material on the subject... This is a concern especially for recent events that may be in the news."

One filing by one country against Israel in the ICJ does not warrant 500 words. That's a short essay. That is clearly not proportional to it's representation and prominence in the sources. I've listed other policy and best practice violations I'm seeing in your draft below.

1.) WP:SYNTH and WP:RS: "South Africa has claimed a consensus of nations agree that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza", you proceed to list a large number of sources that do not say that South Africa has claimed a consensus of nations agree that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. None of them say that. Please find a reliable source per WP:RS supporting that sentence, otherwise it can't be included.

2.) Excessive citations: Even if those sources did support your assertion that "South Africa has claimed a consensus of nations agree that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza", you wouldn't cite a dozen sources for one sentence.

3.) "Those named in South Africa's International Justice Court filing as inciting to genocide are:", you then proceed to list every single person named in the ICJ filing. This is an unnecessary level of detail, and goes against WP:TMI. If our readers want to know more details about the filing, they can look at the source. This is not an article about a single filing by South Africa accusing Israel of incitement to genocide. Chuckstablers (talk) 20:17, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

1) It gets worse when it's strictly factual. It is a riot act of nations and there is a lot to say about it.

2) This is seen as soon as those sources are expanded. Factual: ZA together with other filing nations(source) followed nation(source with quote)(source), nation (source with quote)(source)..., in not only statements condemning Israel's genocide(Russia footnote: "extermination") on Gaza but further, instituting proceedings within the ICJ as signatories of the Geneva Convention.

3) All of those named as inciting to genocide are notable in their own right, and all of them have an accompanying RS reporting the charged incitement as well as the primary source if different. Source with quote also applies. This didn't happen in a bubble. The filing itself is notable. It is noted in full.(Courtroom News Reporter) Thus they are all belligerents now notable in multiple ways for statements perceived as inciting genocide. The filing pertains to the war and a paragraph is not a whole article, rather, characterizes--in a legal, academic, and received way--the nature of the article subject as it has been understood.

A whole article can of course be generated, but we must acknowledge this position in some way, though it is less fun than illustrations demonstrating the dispersal patterns of a 2000 lb bomb or a practical discussion of "weaponizing food". When we have a representative least-size-statement which establishes this view, it will be good to make sure those things are addressed. As it stands, your request requires additional information gladly given. When a counterargument more substantive than 'did not you terrorist-sympathizers' comes to light, it will help balance. As it stands, this is the normal weight of verbiage, no need for Bisan Owda to chime in. Bring sources to match the weight of sources given. It will be impossible to suppress this view. Much easier to address this view.ClaudeReigns (talk) 22:09, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

Claude; I'm not going to engage with further with you here as you haven't really addressed any of my policy based concerns. For 1.); I told you that you needed a source to support that statement. What you said is nice, but didn't address the fact you're missing a source for that statement. For 2.); There are no sources to expand because you haven't provided links to any of them, or dates, or anything for most of them other than a headline or quote maybe from the source. For 3.) They're named in one document. You've found other sources reporting on that one source. That one source isn't sufficient per NPOV to justify including all sixteen people listed in the complaint; it is WP:TMI.

I also think there's a language barrier here as I struggle to understand much of what you write out and much of what you've said earlier (no disrespect meant). Nobody's trying to "suppress" anything (i'm going to choose to not read that as a personal attack mind you). I just want WP:RS And WP:NPOV to be followed and for policy to be followed.

In any case; at this point I've expressed my concerns here. I'll let other editors take over if they choose to engage with this. Chuckstablers (talk) 03:37, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Genocide charges are exceedingly rare – there were just a handful of genocides in the last 100 years. If a state decides to formally file genocide charges against another state before an international court, then for god's sake it's a development that warrants more than 500 words in an encyclopaedia! I agree that the wording proposed by OP is a tad clumsy. — kashmīrī ^TALK 08:28, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

"Genocide charges are exceedingly rare – there were just a handful of genocides in the last 100 years."

"it's a development that warrants more than 500 words in an encyclopaedia!"

The first quote is your assessment of the notability of the genocide charges. For us to give it the prominence in an article about the war as a whole as you think it deserves, we would need lots of reliable sources discussing it and giving it prominence as well, WP:NPOV.

It is a noteworthy development. It is not sufficiently noteworthy in the context of the war as a whole to justify giving it 500+ words in this article given that all the sources actually talk about at this point is that South Africa filed something with the ICJ and Israel will defend itself in court. That's all we have at this point.

We gave 278 words to the Russian Invasion of Ukraine article with far more to actually talk about. There was the whole "arrest warrant issued for the leader of one of the UN security council members for the first time in history thing". There there was a brief discussion of the international reaction, then there was a discussion of further war crime charges about forced deportations. All of them backed up with sources. Chuckstablers (talk) 21:39, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

References

Popular culture of the war

Various artists collaborated for the Palestinian Children's Relief Fund, with 25 recording artists in all contributing to the 8:31 anthem "Rajieen"(GQ Middle East)(Institute for Palestine Studies)(Ahram): Saif Safadi, Dana Salah, Ghaliaa Chaker, Afroto, Nordo, Saif Shroof, Akhras, Issam Alnajjar, Amir Eid, Balti, Wessam Qutub, Dina El Wedidi, Bataineh, Omar Rammal, Alyoung, Randar, Vortex, Small X, ALA, Fuad Gritli, Donia Wael, Zeyne, Marwan Moussa, Marwan Pablo, and Dafencii. "What crime did the murdered child commit, who dreamt of only a modest future, and what of the child who survived, only to lose their family?"(DailyO)

Israeli broadcaster Kan shared a children choir's piece called "Friendship Song 2023"(AJ)(Kann)(EI)(TOI 21-Nov-2023) by Civil Front(JPost "'Never again', Jerusalem's controversial billboard campaign"), which works to restore Israeli citizens' confidence in the state's security forces. It was later deleted after a critical piece in Al-Jazeera https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUpm2jGJc18 "Within a year we will eliminate them all" (AJ)(Kann)(EI)(TOI 21-Nov-2023)

"Seeing Her Through My Eyes" by photojournalist Motaz Azaiza was one of TIME's Top 10 Photos of 2023.(Time) He was GQ Middle East's Man of the Year.(GQ Middle East)

Elana Shap of ISRAEL21c observed every Israeli war had a theme song and felt the song which best fit the bill for this war is "Molodet" (Homeland) by Hanan Ben Ari “You will always be my homeland, even on the edge of the abyss" (ISRAEL21c)

The Washington Post noted the Brian Cox reading of Refaat Alareer's "If I Must Die", composed some days before the poet was killed in an Israeli air strike.(WaPo)(Literary Hub)(Time)(The National)(AJ obit)

Rogers Waters fringe something something ClaudeReigns (talk) 06:55, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

I can't see where that would go though it does contribute to the idea of it being genocide. That "Friendship Song 2023" is quite horrific. NadVolum (talk) 13:10, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

Culture context for events usually goes at the bottom.ClaudeReigns (talk) 10:04, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

+1 yes, at the bottom. These are often better done after the conflict when the full "cultural" impact of the conflict is understood, and the most material items can be chronicled. Aszx5000 (talk) 00:36, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

RfC on including casualty template in lede

Despite being the most watched/edited article on this topic, the casualty count is constantly contradictory/outdated, so I created a template Template:2023 Israel–Hamas war casualties that is already transcluded in several low traffic pages, as well as in the #Casualties section. It can conditionally show wiki-links for articles that it is not self referencing on. Feel free to modify this RfC boldly ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 12:20, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

Option A: Leave it as is

Option B1: Transclude the template in the lede

Option B2: Transclude the template in the lede and remove from #Casualties

Option C: Transclude the template, but with some major modifications first. ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 12:20, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

I do not understand what the options are. What do you mean? Gaza health ministry does not say which or how many casualties are fighters... Is that what this is about? Homerethegreat (talk) 14:50, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

@Shushugah: can you show an example of what this would look like? VR _talk 05:08, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

The template {{2023 Israel–Hamas war casualties}} is edited in real time. Point is, currently the lede of this article does not transclude it, and while the casualties in body are up to date, the lede needs to be manually updated. Below is live transclusion. You can also see where else is it transcluded.

Live transclusion

{{2023 Israel–Hamas war casualties}}

As of 5 November 2024, over 45,000 people (43,391 Palestinian and 1,706 Israeli) have been reported killed in the Israel–Hamas war, including 134–146 journalists and media workers, 120 academics, and over 224 humanitarian aid workers, including 179 employees of UNRWA. In Nov 2024, the UN published its analysis covering only victims verified from at least three independent sources over 6 months span between Nov 2023 and April 2024 found that 70% of Palestinian deaths in Gaza are women and children.

The majority of casualties have been in the Gaza Strip. The Gaza Health Ministry (GHM) total casualty count is the number of deaths directly caused by the war. The demographic breakdown is a subset of those individually identified. On 17 September 2024, the GHM published the names, gender and birth date of 34,344 individual Palestinians whose identities were confirmed. This reflects over 80% of the casualties reported so far; of these, 60% were not men of fighting age. The GHM count does not include those who have died from "preventable disease, malnutrition and other consequences of the war". An analysis by the Gaza Health Projections Working Group predicted thousands of excess deaths from disease and birth complications. According to a PCPSR report, over 60% of Gazans have lost family members since 7 October 2023.

According to a letter sent to President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, and others on 2 October 2024 by 99 American healthcare workers who have served in the Gaza Strip since 7 October 2023, based on the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification standards and cited in a study from the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University, the most conservative estimate that they could calculate based on the available data was at least 62,413 deaths in Gaza from starvation (most of them young children) and at least 5,000 deaths from lack of access to care for chronic diseases.

The 7 October attacks on Israel killed 1,195 people, including 815 civilians. A further 479 Palestinians, including 116 children, and 9 Israelis have been killed in the occupied West Bank (including East Jerusalem). Casualties have also occurred in other parts of Israel, as well as in southern Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, and Iran.

Discussion casualty template

A good reason the count is contradictory may be because it is. Please see Talk:Casualties of the 2023 Israel–Hamas war#Infobox casualties + figures are weird. There's something badly wrong happening. I thought it was because the Gaza Health Authority used a different age for children but the Palestinian Authority which puts out their figures uses the same age as the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor. NadVolum (talk) 12:57, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

If they match, it's just because they copied. Euro Med can't be getting data from anywhere else?

Gaza ➡️ Pal Authority ➡️ Euro Med

But copying Pal Authority instead of Gaza is an Endorsement, so we need to see if there's a good reason they picked that one and not Gaza?

There could be a good reason, like the PA data is more compete.

But it could be political, in which case I'd stick with closer to the source unless we have a justifiable explanation for why they don't match.

Gazans leadership and Pal authority don't get on, but hopefully the health depts cooperate a lot better than the politicians / leaders.

Gazans leadership and Pal authority don't get on, but hopefully the health depts get on a lot better than the politicians / leaders.

Gaza is kind of a known unknown, if PA disagrees we need to know WHY before we rely on it.

possible good reason

Pal Authority could be checking for missing details based on databases of personal info, they would have more time to do that.

Gaza are over stretched, I think they hit that point on 27 October but it's probably got worse.

So they could be passing on partial data for PA to complete. e.g. If there is a name and ID number, PA add missing dates of birth?

If there is a name and an ID number, Pal Authority could be adding missing dates of birth?

So if we can verify that something like that explains the disagreement. Then PA / Euro Med is better.

But if we can't explain it, I don't trust it.

If Gaza are passing incomplete data to PA and they're filling gaps, that's a good reason to trust Eorp Med / PA.

There could be political reasons, in which case the data is just inexplicably distorted.

For whatever reason (messy and I only half understand it) all of Gaza's official foreign affairs go via West Bank Pal Authority. So Euro Med might be kind of obliged to use their numbers, even if there is no evidence they are more reliable.

If we can't explain why they differ, then it seems more like distortion than improvements. We can't justify switching without a good explanation of why they disagree.

Note

I've somewhat deliberately not looked at which is higher / lower or more / fewer kids before writing that, to avoid bias, but I'll try to find now.

Irtapil (talk) 05:02, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

My understandin is that the Palestinian figures are supposed to just be the Gaza figures passed on to them from the Gaza Health Ministry, they also document numbers for Palestinians being killed elsewhere, mostly on the West Bank. Gaza doesn't do its own public release currently that I can see. Those are registered deaths with names and ids plus a number of unidentified ones. Euro Med uses those figures and together with the numbers of missing possibly under rubble and details about bombing and what happens in wars and extrapolates to try and estimate the total deaths. So Euro-Med figures for women should be higher than the Gaza ones but have been a bit lower and their figures for children is much higher but are much more in line with what one would expect considering the number of women killed. NadVolum (talk) 15:10, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

General comment. I wasn't even getting into methodological differences of EuroMed/MoH etc...but simply that as time/information changes, for example no one disputes that there are now ~1200 Israeli casualties, which is an update from 1400 casualties, but with so many different infrequently maintained Wikipedia articles, they were out of sync for sometime. And a template allows for a consensus driven/up to-date summary. The discussion of what to present/summarize will continue to be a discussion on the template, and that will continuously be a discussion. ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 12:26, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

References

Hamas willingness to sacrifice of Palestinians to build international support

Hamas' motive includes a desire to sacrifice civilians to build international support. For example, Time says "Hamas' willingness to sacrifice civilian Palestinians for the larger cause of building anti-Israel sentiment worldwide has succeeded beyond measure", Times of Israel reports that Hamas "is not responsible for protecting the Strip’s civilians", and the New York Times reports that Hamas officials have called Palestine a "nation of martyrs" and that they are "proud to sacrifice martyrs".

I've added this to the body of the article but I feel it warrants mention in the lede too, as it provides important context to the civilian toll. BilledMammal (talk) 13:59, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

@Makeandtoss: You removed the addition to the body saying this is not related to the background, but the section is in regards to Hamas' motivations.

You also removed a sentnece where an Hamas official stated that their goal is the annihilation of Israel; again, I fail to see how this is not related to Hamas' motivations. BilledMammal (talk) 14:28, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Yes, it belongs elsewhere not in the background. Background means: situation or conditions prevailing at a certain time; i.e. just up to October 7. Makeandtoss (talk) 14:31, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

I would suggest that Hamas' motivations and goals for the October 7 attacks, including both those publicized before and after, belong in such a section. For example, the lead sentence of that section says Hamas officials said their attack was a response to the Israeli occupation, blockade of the Gaza Strip, Israeli settler violence against Palestinians, restrictions on the movement of Palestinians, and imprisonment of thousands of Palestinians. BilledMammal (talk) 14:36, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

But the motivation section lies under the background, so this is still part of the background and its time frame is defined up until the war's breakout, as with all other WP articles. Makeandtoss (talk) 14:39, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

These are part of their motivations for starting the war; it is relevant to the time frame even if the information was released after the war begun. It is also aligned with the other content in the section; for example, the line I quoted is based on information released after the war begun. BilledMammal (talk) 14:43, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Information being released after the war =!= information being relevant to before the start of the war. Makeandtoss (talk) 14:47, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

But it can be relevant - and I don't see why coverage of Hamas' motivations for starting the war is not relevant. Can you explain why you believe it is? BilledMammal (talk) 14:49, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

The motivations is already in the background section. This is not part of the background however and is relevant in a different section. Makeandtoss (talk) 14:50, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

These are the motivations, though? I'm struggling to understand why you believe these motivations for starting the war aren't relevant to the background to how and why the war began. BilledMammal (talk) 14:55, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Concept of martyrdom and whether Hamas has responsibility are not related to the background: the conditions prevailing at a certain time. These are statements made after the war's outbreak. Makeandtoss (talk) 14:59, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

But Hamas' willingness to sacrifice martyrs is. And the content I added was not only related to martyrs; it also included:

1. Hamas aiming for the annihilation of Israel and the belief that Israel's existence was "illogical"
2. Hamas being willing sacrifice civilians to gain international support

BilledMammal (talk) 15:11, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Does context to the motives of Hamas not warrant to be in the background? I think it should be explained, this is due information to be presented. Homerethegreat (talk) 14:47, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

No. Every bloody nation when attacked keeps repeating that it's ready to fight the invader until death, "until the last soldier", etc. This worldwide phenomenon is completely unrelated to the political background in the region. — kashmīrī ^TALK 20:07, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

The NYT reporting that Hamas said Palestinians are a "nation of martyrs" does not at all mean they are willing to sacrifice Palestinians. As Kashmiri points out, a lot of it just war rhetoric. VR _talk 05:11, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

"Increasing isolation"

@Makeandtoss: You add this phrase almost every time you edit this article and someone inevitably reverts you (one, two, three). Perhaps it is time to discuss now why you believe it is warranted? BilledMammal (talk) 14:34, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

I have asked each of them why it is not warranted and they have not provided a sufficient answer. Looking forward to hearing one. Makeandtoss (talk) 14:38, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Perhaps it would be helpful if you provided an explanation for why it is warranted? BilledMammal (talk) 14:41, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Ledes summarize the body; this is a summary of the numerous times that the US and Israel have rejected calls for a ceasefire, whether through the former vetoeing UNSC resolutions or through its continued support to Israel or otherwise. There is no reason why it should be omitted. Makeandtoss (talk) 14:44, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

The general claim that the US is "isolated on the world stage" is "summarizing" one sentence in the body citing one article in The Guardian. Since the signs of this supposed isolation seem to just be UN votes, half of which are meaningless, we could say "isolated at the UN", although that condition itself is hardly out of the ordinary. PrimaPrime (talk) 15:19, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

I think the sentence should be not be in the article until further discussed. Indeed there is now an international coalition against the Houthis... Homerethegreat (talk) 14:44, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Fighting Houthis have nothing to do with the ceasefire in Gaza. Please make a sound argument on why the lede, which summarizes the body, should not summarize the body. Makeandtoss (talk) 14:46, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

The claim of increased isolated is correct and warranted. The reverts should be justified if they're being made. JDiala (talk) 16:00, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

+1 Watching the sequence of UN votes on cease fire resolutions, it is pretty unambiguous that the US and Israel are "increasingly isolated" as it pertains to continuing with the fighting in Gaza. It is lede-worthy. Aszx5000 (talk) 00:33, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

It needs to be clarified in what sense. Despite all this talk of isolation the US and Israel are nowhere near as isolated as Russia, North Korea, or Iran (which are living with sanctions that admittedly are having a significant economic impact). Borgenland (talk) 15:24, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

Increasing isolation is a fairly obvious statement to make in respect of Israel. As for the US, NYT has "It is not the first time that the United States has appeared isolated in its defense of Israel, especially at the United Nations,.." and "It is one reason, with the year drawing to a close, that the United States finds itself diplomatically isolated and in a defensive crouch." The difference with Russia is that the US is out on a limb with its allies. I would call it diplomatic isolation myself since it is not only the UN. Selfstudier (talk) 15:54, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

Agree with the diplomatic thing. Borgenland (talk) 16:00, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

Unless there’s a consensus among reliable sources “increasingly isolated” is original research. Drsmoo (talk) 17:43, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

I think the point he’s trying to make is that saying the u.s is politically isolated is subjective, and many people would see it as wrong, as the u.s still has a lot of political allies in support of its actions, I don’t think saying the u.s is politically isolated should be added because I don’t think it is, and other situations where political isolation happened isn’t represented like this across Wikipedia or this subject itself Bobisland (talk) 17:27, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

With all due respect, in WP we use reliable sources to cite information, not editors' personal opinions, and RS are unanimous in expressing the view that Israel and US were becoming increasingly isolated on world stage. Also good to note that all of these article, which unanimously say the same thing, are saying this in dedicated articles about the US/Israel isolation, and not some random sentences here and there.

• "Israel and the United States were increasingly isolated as they faced global calls for a cease-fire in Gaza including a non-binding vote expected to pass at the United Nations later on Tuesday. Israel has pressed ahead with an offensive against Gaza's Hamas rulers that it says could go on for weeks or months." - Time
• "Israel and the United States on Tuesday showed their sharpest public disagreement yet over the conduct and future of the war against Hamas as the two allies became increasingly isolated by global calls for a cease-fire. - Associated Press
• "The United States was looking increasingly isolated on the world stage on Tuesday after a resounding vote at the UN general assembly calling for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza." - The Guardian
• "It is not the first time that the United States has appeared isolated in its defense of Israel, especially at the United Nations,." - The New York Times
• "As the Israeli military expands its military operations in Gaza, NBC News' Hala Gorani reports on the Israel Defense Forces latest offensive against Hamas and how the U.S. and Israel are becoming increasingly isolated internationally amid growing calls for a cease-fire" - NBC news

Makeandtoss (talk) 21:33, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

I don’t think commentary should trump facts the u.s and Israel still have strong political ties across the world, multiple countries are also sending Israel military aid on the specific subject of war, multiple articles also exist on this and can contradict these although they aren’t commentary, these sources are considered reliable by Wikipedia standards with examples being AP news and Reuters, if this is added into the lead I think foreign countries sending military aid to Israel should also be added alongside it for balance Bobisland (talk) 01:00, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

Again, with all due respect to your opinions, as WP editors we reflect what RS have said, and not what we think or what we conclude. The increased isolation is placed within its appropriate context; that of rejecting the ceasefire as evidenced by both UNSC and UNGA voting patterns. Makeandtoss (talk) 08:48, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

Per above (and my own search of "increasingly isolated" + "Gaza" (in the news tab), there are a lot of quality global WP:RS/P stating that the US and Israel are "increasingly isolated", or just "isolated", regarding their unwillingness to call a cease-fire and suspend the military aspect of the conflict. I don't think there is ambiguity on this. Aszx5000 (talk) 12:02, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

Media

There is an over reliance on Israeli-related media in the article, while the article mostly discusses the situation in Gaza. Makeandtoss (talk) 14:40, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

How do you define "Israeli related"? Irtapil (talk) 10:30, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

Pictures of Israeli soldiers, politicians, and incidents take up a majority of the media disproportionate with body coverage. Makeandtoss (talk) 10:42, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

@Makeandtoss There is also a skew to the USA. Out of the two, at least early on, the USA media was even worse. Some of the better Newspapers, like Haaretz and Times of Israel were a lot more willing to criticize the Israeli government early on, or possibly more able to by having a better view of what was going on. But it seems to have switched now and even those previously good papers are saying some weird things. I was going to go through a couple of the main pages and actually count, but I haven't got around to doing it yet.

Irtapil (talk) 10:19, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

I forget which page that was on (see screenshot), but it seems wrong to claim an unspecified "consensus" based on that collection? I didn't save that effort, but i took a screenshot to discuss.

Irtapil (talk) 10:27, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

Rockets falling short

@BilledMammal: This is not discussed in the body, nor in the source does it say that the casualties are caused by 12% rocket failure. Most RS do not make this claim. Makeandtoss (talk) 14:42, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Sources have widely discussed casualties caused by rockets falling short; for a notable incident, see Al-Ahli Arab Hospital explosion - more coverage, I would note, than has been given to friendly fire by Israeli forces. As for the specifics of what I added, this is just an appropriately brief summary to fit in the lede. BilledMammal (talk) 14:46, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

12% is never mentioned in body and thus this is not a summary. Sources focusing on the casualties have never -to my knowledge- discussed that rockets falling short were responsible, nor did they cite a 12% figure. Makeandtoss (talk) 14:49, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Easily resolvable; I've added the 12% figure to the body. BilledMammal (talk) 14:54, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

'''Sources focusing on the casualties have never -to my knowledge- discussed that rockets falling short were responsible, nor did they cite a 12% figure.''' Makeandtoss (talk) 14:56, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

I've provided additional sources to address your concerns; one, for example, says Hamas does not discriminate between those killed by Israel and those killed by the hundreds of rockets it fired that fell short in Gaza. BilledMammal (talk) 15:08, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

I've explained before that you're synthesizing multiple sources; the JNS source says, exactly: Around 12% of the rockets fell short, striking in Gaza and endangering civilians there. It does not say that any have been killed as a result; in fact, it does not mention mortality figures whatsoever. The ToI source you cite above is so aggressively POV that it should really be discounted (I mean, "Hamas says"? No, the Health Ministry, whose figures are backed by the Lancet, says.) Even if we don't discount it, it makes no mention of this 12% figure. This is poorly sourced and definitionally WP:SYNTH, it should be reverted. WillowCity^(talk) 15:22, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

ToI is a reliable source, and the Gaza Health Ministry is run by Hamas.

Regarding the actual content, would you be more comfortable if we say "between ten and twenty percent", citing the New York Times and Human Rights Watch (source already in the article)? BilledMammal (talk) 15:42, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

The Health Ministry is run by Hamas inasmuch as the IPS is run by Otzma Yehudit (i.e., Itamar Ben-Gvir). It's a healthcare service run by bureaucrats and staffed by medical personnel. ToI may be reliable for the Israeli view of events, but I question whether it should be relied on for statements of fact without attribution.

Anyway, the language you suggest would need to be attributed to NYT and HRW "citing Israeli military data", per the NYT article. NYT also notes Iron Dome interceptions, which may also explain rockets "falling short" (while we're synthesizing, we could throw that in).

Even then, this does not address the question of whether this is due for inclusion anywhere in the article, and not just in the lede. The coverage of this supposed issue has been extremely limited from what I've seen, to the extent that it would skew the BALASP of the article. Content-wise, I think inclusion would be POV. WillowCity^(talk) 16:05, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

There has been considerable coverage of rockets falling short, both in general and individual incidents - to the extent that I could easily present hundreds of reliable sources. It is certainly WP:DUE for both the article and the lede.

Iron Dome doesn’t intercept rockers inside Gaza. BilledMammal (talk) 16:09, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Iron Dome missiles have a range of up to 70 km; a battery in Tel Aviv could certainly intercept a rocket over Gaza City, in theory.

Regarding the volume of sources, if you can present "hundreds" of RSPSS that address the issue squarely, without cherrypicking, then I'd like to see them–the onus is on you, after all. WillowCity^(talk) 16:20, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Generally not - they intercept during free fall which generally occurs after the rocket has entered Israeli territory.

What do you mean address the issue squarely, without cherrypicking? BilledMammal (talk) 16:28, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Sorry, clumsy wording--I meant that the sources should address the issue squarely, such that relying on them for the stated proposition is not cherrypicking. I.e., a single, oblique reference to Palestinian rockets in a 2,000-word article focusing on Gaza casualties would be WP:CHERRYPICK. WillowCity^(talk) 16:33, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

I'm still not sure what you mean, but for the general topic I did a quick search and, excluding sources identified as unreliable, found these that I believe to be sufficient: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9y, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20.

You may disagree with the inclusion of some of these sources, but the point is that this it is trivial to find sources that document this, and it is appropriate for us to note that these figures do not distinguish between Palestinians killed by Israel and Palestinians killed by Palestinian Militants - us failing to do so is a violation of NPOV, as it will leave readers with the false impression that all casualties are due to Israeli action.

As for specific incidents, I can't be bothered producing another list now, but I'll just point towards Al-Ahli Arab Hospital explosion where you will find dozens of sources. BilledMammal (talk) 02:46, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

On paper, an impressive number (not "hundreds", but decent). But they unravel under even brief scrutiny:

1) I disagree with the inclusion of many of these sources, and while it may be trivial to find non-reliable sources that document this issue, that is not the standard; there must be sufficient coverage in RS.

2) Of the 20 sources above, only 4 have been determined reliable by RSPSS. 2 more, PBS and New Statesman, I will concede are also reliable. There is no consensus regarding the reliability of any of the 14 others (many of which are either Israeli or potentially agenda-driven).

2) of the 4 sources that the community definitively considers reliable, the Amnesty source is from June, before the current war even began; using it to support this claim would be synth. NYT attributes the allegation to Israel: ("says HRW, citing Israeli military data".) The piece in The Australian (potentially a "partisan source" per RSPSS) appears to be an op-ed. The other sources whose reliability I concede either attribute the claims (PBS: "Israel says ... rockets have misfired") or are equivocal (New Statesman: "[Rockets] may, through misfires, have killed more Palestinians...")

3) this leaves a single RS that is definitively reliable, Haaretz, which is paywalled (sadly I don't subscribe). That said, one RS does not verifiability make.

4) There is no confirmation that al-Ahli was caused by a misfired rocket; Wikipedia currently does not say so in wikivoice. Even if it was, relying on coverage of it in the way you suggest would still be synthesis because sources are not discussing it in the context you propose here, with the exception of a single link in the NYT article you linked above.

5) This means, at best, we have one demonstrably high-quality source for the claim you propose to include in the lead in wikivoice. This is not sufficient given the volume of coverage of other issues, many of which are not included in the lead. WillowCity^(talk) 03:36, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

You suggest that most of these sources are unreliable; can you explain why you consider them to be unreliable? I note that a source doesn't need to be listed at RSP to be reliable; see WP:RSPMISSING.

Regarding the sources you assess individually:

1. PBS also says that misfired rockets killed Palestinians in its own voice; More than 3,600 Palestinian children were killed in the first 25 days of the war between Israel and Hamas, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run Health Ministry. They were hit by airstrikes, smashed by misfired rockets, burned by blasts and crushed by buildings, and among them were newborns and toddlers, avid readers, aspiring journalists and boys who thought they’d be safe in a church. Emphasis mine.
2. The Australian source is, I believe, a news source.
3. The "may" in the New Statesman source is referring to the possibility that these rockets have killed more Palestinians than they have Israelis, not that they may have killed Palestinians.

Regarding al-Ahli, sources are in consensus that Israel being the culprit is extremely unlikely, and some go further than that and say conclusively that Palestinian Islamic Jihad was the culprit. I believe that is sufficient. BilledMammal (talk) 03:53, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

WP:CONTEXTMATTERS. JNS is notably hawkish on Israel. Tablet has also veered right in recent years. The Christian Post is a conservative evangelical outlet, and the linked article cites to ToI for the relevant point anyway. As for ToI itself (and JPost) both of these outlets have right-wing connections, and media censorship is rampant in Israel; the 1945 Defence (Emergency) Regulations creates a regime of extensive censorship which has recently expanded; self-censorship has also increased. In fact, the Rwandan foreign ministry accused ToI of disinformation just yesterday.

The Economic Times story is a reprint from ANI, a propaganda outlet (see RSPSS).

On further review, Stuff is likely also reliable, but it does not indicate that the total death toll includes casualties from misfires, and it cites a single aid worker from NZ for the misfire question. The Messenger is also probably reliable, but it covers rocket misfires in a single sentence (and very possibly with attribution, although unclear due to the dangling/misplaced modifier) in the context of an article on Israeli friendly fire, so relying on it as you suggest would be WP:CHERRYPICK (unless we propose to also cover Israeli friendly fire in the lead).

I'm unsure about the reliability of JTS but they refer to the issue in passing, without evidence, in articles about generally unrelated matters.

I'm aware that bias and reliability are not the same, but when almost of the relevant sources for a claim are coming from a shared POV, or are connected to the subject, or are of dubious reliability for other reasons, it raises the question of whether inclusion is due, or whether it is simply pushing a POV. This is particularly the case when the relevant sources are relatively few in number (amid an absolute tsunami of news coverage).

PBS later clarifies that its conclusion is based on Israeli reports. And considering that the Australian article describes pro-Palestine activism as a "long campaign" against "Jews, and America" I would be very surprised if it was not an op-ed. Regarding NS, that is the only reference to rocket misfires and it is, on my reading, unclear as to whether they are definitively stating that any Palestinians have been killed. All they say is "may".

I think that covers all of them. Again, the sources just aren't up to snuff.

(as for Al-Ahli, maybe not an airstrike, but the evidence is still inconclusive, and Wikipedia has yet to take a side in its own voice. Artillery shelling (for example) is still a possibility.) WillowCity^(talk) 05:06, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

PBS says "Israel says...more than 500 militant rockets have misfired and landed in Gaza, killing an unknown number of Palestinians." So we should be attributing this allegation to Israel. VR _talk 05:15, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

All of this is also getting away from the real question of whether a preponderance of reliable sources are describing Gaza casualties in this way, which they certainly aren’t. WillowCity^(talk) 05:26, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

You misunderstand WP:DUE; a fact doesn't need to be mentioned in a majority of sources on a topic to be due for inclusion - think it through for a moment, you'll see the problem with holding otherwise.

Instead, a majority of sources that discuss the fact need to agree with the proposed position, and a sufficient number of sources need to discuss the topic. In this case, sources that discuss whether Palestinian rockets have killed Palestinians are in agreement, and a sufficient number have discussed the topic.

PBS attributes the specific number of misfires; it says in its own voice, per the section I quoted, that Palestinian children have been killed by misfires.

Regarding your review of your sources, it seems you agree that they are mostly reliable, although you hold that some are biased; the requirement for inclusion is met. BilledMammal (talk) 05:35, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

@WillowCity My wife and I happen to have a Haaretz subscription, but it may interest you to know that you can generally view any Haaretz article by accessing its archive on archive.is, in this case: [53] Andreas JN466 23:26, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

I don’t know how you got that from my last comment. I pointed out that less than half the sources were reliable for the stated point, due to a lack of independence or other disqualifying factors, and of those that are, most of them can’t be used for the proposition you’re proposing. The real requirement for inclusion is editorial consensus so we’ll see where the chips fall on that one.

As for WP:DUE, let’s try a hypothetical. If 100 sources said apples are healthy, and 1 source said that some apples are dangerous, would we include in the lead of apple that they’re dangerous? If 100 RS said negligence caused deaths in an industrial accident, and 1 source said that some of the workers died of unrelated causes, would it be due to discuss the other causes in the lead? WillowCity^(talk) 05:57, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

You argued that less than half the sources were unbiased; a source can be biased and reliable - although, I disagree with you on your assessment of some of those sources bias.

Regarding your hypothetical, of course we wouldn't - but for that hypothetical to be equivalent we would need 100 (or actually, 2000 to maintain the 1:100 ratio, but I'll settle for 20) reliable sources telling us either that militant rockets don't misfire and hit Gaza, or that they don't kill Palestinians when they do. Do you have those sources? BilledMammal (talk) 06:03, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

I reasoned that their bias made them unreliable for the intended proposition. I pointed out WP:CONTEXTMATTERS, which indicates that a source that may be reliable for some things is unreliable for other things.

And you're asking the wrong question. The question is not "do rockets misfire or not" or "do misfires cause casualties or not". The relevant question is whether this is in any way a material detail, as reflected by meaningful, widespread, reliable coverage. It's definitely not. Here are 20 indisputably high-quality sources that make no mention of it: NYT [54] ("killed by Israeli airstrikes", no mention of rockets) [55]; CBC [56] [57] (from Reuters); The Guardian [58] (Israel's "assault ... has killed more than 22,400 people"; nothing on rockets); [59]; [60] (article on death toll via the AP, no mention of rockets); AP itself [61]; CNBC [62] [63]; Reuters [64]; [65]; BBC [66]; [67]; [68]; ABC [69]; Barron's via AFP [70]; today's CNN live coverage (no mention of alleged Palestinian rocket casualties) [71]; The Independent [72]; Voice of America (for those who like that sort of thing) [73]; CBS (via the AP) [74].

These are cream of the crop sources from the past week or two (many are from the past few days), and most focus on casualties/the humanitarian situation. I could probably find 80 (or even 980) more if I had time. We don't need to (nor should we) scrape the bottom of the barrel for sources that push Israeli talking points.

This detail is an irrelevance as demonstrated by the complete lack of quality sources that repeat it. It would serve only to skew the lead towards a POV. WillowCity^(talk) 18:56, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

The question is not "do rockets misfire or not" or "do misfires cause casualties or not". To fit your analogy, it does.

Further, as I said before, a fact doesn't need to be mentioned in a majority of sources on a topic to be due for inclusion - think it through for a moment, you'll see the problem with holding otherwise.

It only has to be mentioned in a sufficient number; you recognize this elsewhere, such as in #Mention of apartheid RfC where you argue that we should include a mention, and in #RfC on genocide accusation in lead you argue we should also include a mention. In both cases a majority of sources on the topic do not mention either of these. BilledMammal (talk) 01:44, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

Maybe the apple analogy. Not the industrial accident analogy; as in this case, the question would be whether the majority of sources make any reference to the alleged other causes. Here, they do not.

Regarding my other positions, these have to be placed in context. I did not advocate for including apartheid in the lead; I do not necessarily think apartheid should be included in the lead, just as I do not necessarily oppose discussion of rocket misfires in the body.

Regarding genocide, that is based on the lead summarizing the body. Two separate parts of the body make note of the genocide allegation, and that could almost certainly be expanded based on the recent tidal wave of RS coverage following the ICJ proceedings. Here, we have approximately a sentence on rocket misfires (other than al-Ahli, on which my position is clearly set out in this section; even counting that, we have maybe two sentences). WillowCity^(talk) 01:53, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

In terms of coverage in the lead of any article, regard must always be had for WP:BALASP. WillowCity^(talk) 01:54, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

And BALASP is met. There is a huge amount of coverage of rockets falling short, both in specific incidents and in general - having had a quick search, I suspect more than the genocide allegations. BilledMammal (talk) 01:58, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

I dispute that. Your search produced a handful of RS that made (usually oblique) reference to rocket misfires. Meanwhile, since South Africa instituted its proceedings, there has been increasing coverage of the genocide issue in gold-standard sources. We have a finite amount of space in the lead. Rocket misfires are far from a significant feature of the war as a whole. But I would think both of our views have been made very clear by now; I doubt either of us will change the other's mind on this point. WillowCity^(talk) 02:06, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

Even if the Hamas rockets that failed fell mostly on buildings and were anywhere near the size of the Israeli bombs they would still only account for a fraction of a percent of the deaths overall. NadVolum (talk) 15:30, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

If we trust the figures issued by the Gaza Health Ministry, then just one of the rockets that fell short caused 2% of the Palestinian deaths. At the very least hundreds have been killed by these rockets, probably thousands, and it warrants a mention. BilledMammal (talk) 15:37, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Yes You're right, they've fired off a lot more rockets than I thought. NadVolum (talk) 16:02, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Are you referring to al-Ahli, the cause of which has not been conclusively determined (such that Israeli involvement can be definitively ruled out)? If that's the best example of a rocket misfire causing fatalities, then I really don't see an argument for inclusion. And again, this doesn't address the coverage/BALASP issue. WillowCity^(talk) 16:08, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Well I think I'll go with the evidenc it was a misfire. Even so assuming the Palestinian rockets were just as dangerous as the Israeli ones and fell on buildings like them we'd on average probably only have 2% about of the deaths being due to them, say about 500. So the Palestinians were very unluck to have that one kill so many. I wonder if it is true an explosive warhead was recovered fom there - I suppose we'll never know. All those deaths and the bomb not even going off! NadVolum (talk) 16:17, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

That is precisely why you mix contradictory sources. The sources that say Al-Ahli explosion caused hundreds of casualties also say it was caused by Israel. The sources that say it was caused by a misfired rocket also say much fewer people died. VR _talk 05:18, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

As I said, if we trust the figures issued by the Gaza Health Ministry; it is your choice whether to do so, although I believe elsewhere I've seen you argue they are trustworthy. BilledMammal (talk) 05:35, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

@BilledMammal Do you mean 12% of rockets or 12% of casualties?

The first one seems likely, but 12% of casualties second seems implausible.

Irtapil (talk) 11:35, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

Of rockets; I don’t know what percent of casualties. BilledMammal (talk) 12:20, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

I don't think this topic meets the materiality threshold, and certainly not for the lede. Palestinian rockets are much less powerful. The Wikipedia article Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel states that from 2004 to 2014, the circa 10,000 Palestinian/Hamas rockets fired killed 27 Israeli citizens+5 foreigners+5 IDF soldiers. That kind of casualty figures are being regularly surpassed by single detonations of IDF munitions. Whatever the accuracy/error-rate of Palestinian/Hamas rockets, it is likely to be a tiny fraction of the deaths so far, and not material. Aszx5000 (talk) 13:40, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

In past conflicts, the rockets have been identified as having killed more - sometimes many more - Palestinians than they have Israeli's. Israeli's have iron dome, sirens, shelters, and the region immediately outside Gaza isn’t heavily populated - none of that is true for Gaza.

As I noted above, according to figures from the GHM, 2% of the conflicts current casualties are from a single militant rocket, and thousands have fallen short. BilledMammal (talk) 13:50, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

This is precisely an example of inappropriate WP:SYNTH. These are good questions for a journalist to look into. I am not following what you mean by GHM claim of 2% of casualties are from a single militant rocket? Nor does that many any claim about what kind of rockets or impact any remaining rockets have. I would gladly discuss what sources claim, but no Wiki editor should do partial differential equation. ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 14:01, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

Reliable sources are in agreement that a misfired Palestinian Islamic Jihad rocket is almost certainly (many now saying certainly) the cause of Al-Ahli hospital deaths. If we trust the figures the GHM has provided for the conflict and that incident, that single rocket caused 2% of the casualties.

There is no inappropriate synth here; we are using the casualty figures provided by the same agency for both numbers, and from there it is basic maths which we are permitted to do.

And no, it doesn’t say anything about the other casualties - but your argument was that it was likely to be a tiny fraction, based on OR about Israeli casualties, but this single incident proves otherwise. BilledMammal (talk) 14:15, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

Aye. All in all, I wouldn't be averse to having friendly fire casualties on both sides mentioned in the lead. Not in the same sentence, mind you – they are quite different – but it seems reasonable to assume that both totals include a not insignificant number of friendly fire casualties. Andreas JN466 23:46, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

Where's the source for the totals? NadVolum (talk) 15:35, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

@Jayen466 The Times of Israel Daily Briefing podcast covered that recently in a fair bit of detail for within the IDF. https://www.timesofisrael.com/topic/the-daily-briefing/ I used to listen to it all the time, but I noticed that was the first episode since 24 October that I've listened to all of. But now i can't work out which episode had the friendly fire bit, i forget which ap i listened on. There's probably a print article that gives me detail anyway. Irtapil (talk) 05:10, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

@Aszx5000 yeah, they're still firing heaps but the Israeli death count is still going down? I did see one guy who allegedly blew his own hand off with a rocket (he'd recovered, just missing a hand), but the rockets are definitely not doing much of the destruction in Gaza.

Irtapil (talk) 04:39, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

@BilledMammal @Aszx5000

The issue of malfunctioning rockets probably already is covered in the relevant specific articles? And if not, it should be. They really need some more detail but there are not many reliable sources to go on for details. e.g. the missing hand guy was just social media, far from reliable source.

Actually, part of the issue could be that English wiki takes the IDF as fact, but doesn't trust the other side? We end up with a lot less detail because almost nothing they say ends up anywhere citable?

Irtapil (talk) 04:41, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

Israeli friendly fire

If we're discussing this we should probably discuss the counterpart in the lede; including an unknown number from friendly fire. While rockets falling short killing civilians have been widely covered, there is far less coverage of this. In addition, one of the sources used, an article by Haaretz, has since been disputed. I'm not convinced this mention should be there, given the lack of coverage and the contested nature of aspects of it. BilledMammal (talk) 15:40, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Insufficient sourcing IMO, and may take long time after the war is over to uncover the actual toll. Perhaps not among key features of this war. It's virtually certain that Palestinians were also killed in Hamas friendly fire. — kashmīrī ^TALK 09:20, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

Took it out until we can find some kind of consensus here. Including only one raises POV concerns and including both could be undue to the amount of coverage they've gotten, although the issue seems significant to me in part because it forces us to stilt our language around people being "killed" by nobody in particular. PrimaPrime (talk) 15:04, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

I don't think that's the end of the world for the lead; in an article about a war, the implication reasonably follows that people killed were killed by the other side.

I'm not opposed to leaving out friendly fire on October 7, since it seems like the coverage has not been that extensive in RS (although it's pretty much undeniable that it happened; WP:VNT). But there should absolutely be parity; there's definitely no basis to include Palestinian friendly fire deaths. WillowCity^(talk) 15:19, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

I think Israeli FF should be covered, both on Oct 7 and in the context of Israel killing its Israeli hostages in Gaza. VR _talk 05:19, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

The question is whether it should be covered in the lede, not whether it should be covered in general. BilledMammal (talk) 05:37, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

In short I don't think it should be in the lede. If there was conclusive evidence, one way or another it would be worth including in the lede, but nearly all cases of friendly fire are highly contentious (understandably so) and we'd need to WP:WEIGHT them properly. I do not see an easy way to do that right now, but within the body certainly can talk about the impact this is having in media discourse etc.. ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 12:00, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

There are a couple of press reports on friendly fire today:

• Families of 13 people killed in October 7 Kibbutz Be’eri firefight demand probe, Times of Israel, Jan 6, 2024
• Families of Israelis Killed in Be'eri Home Hit by IDF Tank on October 7 Demand Probe, Haaretz, Jan 6, 2024

Recall also that Ynet said: "Casualties fell as a result of friendly fire on October 7, but the IDF believes that beyond the operational investigations of the events, it would not be morally sound to investigate these incidents due to the immense and complex quantity of them that took place in the kibbutzim and southern Israeli communities due to the challenging situations the soldiers were in at the time."

All in all, I am in favour of retaining the brief reference in the lead. Andreas JN466 23:12, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

I think it would be quite reasonable to include about the Al Ahli hospital explosion and say that it was most likely a Hamas rocket falling short. That was a major incident in the war. It is also okay to say with attribution that 12% of the rockets misfire. However I don't think we can start saying anything about the contribution of misfired rockets to the overall figures unless some reputable organisation does so and then we can attribute it to them. The other figures are all straightforward figures from reputable sources even if they are in some cases grossly wrong. NadVolum (talk) 17:56, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

Jewish visitors

@PrimaPrime: Hamas said that it was in response to "desecration" of Aqsa mosque, it did not say because of Jewish visitors. The "desecration" included continued Israeli occupation's raids into the mosque, attempts to divide it time and space wise, among several other aspects. Ignoring this and turning it into some other main reason, is completely unsourced. Makeandtoss (talk) 17:09, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

The source (Haniyeh's speech) clearly states their reasoning: "in recent days, during their sinister religious festivals, they have invaded Al-Aqsa Mosque. They desecrated and defiled it."

This is clearly a reference to Jews visiting the site during Sukkot; there were no "occupation raids" at that time, or whatever "attempts to divide it time and space wise" mean beyond a general objection to Jews visiting a site that was holy to them long before Islam. PrimaPrime (talk) 17:22, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

Agreed Drsmoo (talk) 17:41, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

@PrimaPrime: You are acting as a journalist not as a WP editor. RS have not included that as part of the Hamas motivations and I do not know who replaced the source and added a speech which is a primary source. The background section containing this information in the body is supported by multiple secondary RS, which do not contain this claim. Makeandtoss (talk) 19:50, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

The sources in the background section have included that as part of the motivations, for instance the TOI article refers to the issue of Jewish visits to the Temple Mount.

If you prefer the Guardian instead we can add the "unambiguous and chilling" motivation of expelling all Israelis: "We have only one thing to say to you: get out of our land...everything [here] is ours. You are strangers in this pure and blessed land. There is no place of safety for you." PrimaPrime (talk) 20:38, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

The TOI article mentions the issue of Jewish prayers, but this is mentioned separately and not as motivation for the attack. As for the Guardian article, you are again acting as journalist not as WP editor and using quotes to move from "get out of our land.." to "expelling all Israelis"; a lot of similar things can be done for Israeli politicians like "we are dealing with human animals" to "starving all Gazans" or "nuking Gaza" to "killing all Gazans". Statements are statements, and we used secondary RS sources that have done the commentary themselves, not that we used quotes and then rewrote them and commented on them ourselves. Makeandtoss (talk) 21:46, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

TOI is explaining to readers what "desecrating Al-Aqsa" refers to in terms of Hamas's motivations. Similarly the Guardian's commentary is that Hamas's statement of motives include "unambiguous and chilling" threats to Israelis.

Ultimately your question was whether we have secondary sources to go with the subject's own statements about itself, and we do. PrimaPrime (talk) 22:44, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

They provided sources, supporting what they've said. It's pretty clear that Hamas is referring to a jewish presence there. Chuckstablers (talk) 05:20, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

2023 Al-Aqsa clashes: "heavily armed Israeli police" raided Al-Aqsa mosque during Passover and Ramadan[75]. VR _talk 05:21, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

• A lot of the discussion here is WP:SYNTH, which only RS are allowed to do. Al-Jazeera expands more upon what Hamas meant by "desecration" of Al-Aqsa mosque, arguing it includes Israeli police beating up Muslim worshippers and disrupting the itikaf. As for Hamas's issue with Jewish visitors, Al-Jazeera adds that some of the settlers want "[Al-Aqsa] mosque torn down". As a Jewish newspaper points out, when Hamas perceives Al-Aqsa mosque is being desecrated, they are also referring to concerns of replacing Al-Aqsa mosque with the Third temple: "one Hamas statement said, allowed “Jewish groups to desecrate al-Aqsa Mosque;” it also referenced Jewish “intentions of erecting their alleged temple on the ruins of the shrine of our Prophet Muhammad.”.VR _talk 05:28, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

  I had linked 2023 Al-Aqsa clashes in a previous version but it was reverted. It ought to be restored imo, in line with RS reporting. WillowCity^(talk) 05:34, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

  RS reporting in fact refers to the issue of Jewish visits over Sukkot:

  • NYT: "Saturday’s statement from the Hamas military wing cited Jewish prayer at the compound."
  • Guardian: "In the week before the attack, some Jews had prayed inside the compound of al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem’s Old City...to do so is highly provocative. Hamas has called its current offensive Operation al-Aqsa Deluge."
  • Even Al Jazeera, when it's not running propagandistic cartoons: "The surprise operation comes after thousands of Israeli settlers in recent days carried out provocative tours of the Al-Aqsa Mosque complex in occupied East Jerusalem during the Jewish holiday of Sukkot."

  This linkage is unsurprising of course since Hamas's leader himself described what they defined as "desecration of Al-Aqsa": Jewish visits "in recent days, during their sinister religious festivals."

  Are there any sources instead tying the attack to an incident six months prior, contrary to what Hamas itself stated? PrimaPrime (talk) 09:02, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

  "settlers in recent days carried out provocative tours of the Al-Aqsa Mosque", this is not about Jewish prayer, this is about the provocative settler tours, which proves once again that Jewish prayer is one issue out of many issues to what they described as desecration. Makeandtoss (talk) 21:24, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

  I'm sure you're aware that Al Jazeera can be relied upon to describe anything relating to Jews in Jerusalem in terms of "settler provocations". The important thing though is you've conceded the point, Hamas took issue with Jewish visits and not "occupation raids". PrimaPrime (talk) 00:57, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

  What's your point in speaking of Arab source bias? Go read Ynet, JPost and ToL. Hamas, like virtually all Palestinians, of whatever outlook, take exception to any change in the status quo, deployment of military, denial to Arab age groups the right to pray on the site, tolerance of increasing Jewish prayer groups, whatever. Most of these abuses are fostered by settler groups. There is nothing peculiar to Hamas in this. It is not antisemitic to deny Jewish religious groups prayer occasions there.Nishidani (talk) 01:09, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

  “It is not antisemitic to deny Jewish religious groups prayer occasions there.” Yes it is, deeply and obviously. Drsmoo (talk) 01:19, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

Of course, if a Muslim entered a synagogue, rolled out a prayer mat and said his prayers, none of the congregation or the rabbinate would raise an eyebrow. . .Nishidani (talk) 02:26, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

If I recall, they didn't carry out tours of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, but of the Al-Aqsa mosque compound, which is equivalent to Temple Mount. And I suspect that if a synagogue was built on top of the holiest site in Islam, none of the congregation or the rabbinate would raise an eye at Muslims praying in the broader complex. BilledMammal (talk) 02:31, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

It would probably raise an eyebrow, that’s about it. Drsmoo (talk) 02:38, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

If that synagogue was built in place of the Kaaba? PrimaPrime (talk) 03:00, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

• If those sources consistently went out of their way to be as tendentiously partisan as possible (e.g. referring only to "Judea and Samaria" instead of "the West Bank") then you might have a point - but they don't.

  The discussion here is about whether to describe Hamas's grievance about the "desecration of Al-Aqsa" as stemming from Jewish visits to the Temple Mount, as Hamas itself said and reliable sources confirm.

  We're not calling that grievance "antisemitic." Perhaps you've drawn that conclusion. Readers are free to decide otherwise. PrimaPrime (talk) 02:17, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

Hamas's grievance is generic and has been repeated by all Palestinian groups since 1967, and in the prior era (1920s-1929). The quantity of material on these protests, by Hamas since the 1990s, is extensive, and they cover a large range of issues. To try to seize on a source or two and restrict the notion of 'desecration' to a Jewish presence there is to imply an antisemitic character to this, which is indeed paralleled as Hamas clerics know by the Israeli rabbinate's ban on risking impurity by one's presence there as a Jew. The phrase 'Jewish visits to the Temple Mount' is functionally meaningless since it covers anything from a secular tourist visit to soldiers bursting into to the site, to settlers caught with goats bent on making animal sacrifice there. As such it is disinformative, since unless it were qualified by extensive annotation as to precisely what Hamas considers desecration it would have the antisemitic drift noted above.Nishidani (talk) 02:43, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

Are there sources for Hamas being okay with secular tourists? If so we can do the extensive annotation. PrimaPrime (talk) 03:02, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

• My understanding of the current situation is that we have sources saying that the "desecration" is due to Jewish visits. Unless we have sources contradicting this, which I don't believe we do, it would be an NPOV and OR violation to exclude it on the grounds that we think those sources might be wrong. BilledMammal (talk) 02:46, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

  Are there any Jewish visits that Hamas believes are acceptable? Are there sources that state that Hamas views some Jewish visits as acceptable and some not, or are no Jewish visits acceptable to them? Drsmoo (talk) 02:48, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

This article is not about Hamas views on the Temple Mount, and the massive energy devoted to making a mountain out of this molehill in an overview of the Hamas Israeli war is odd. Hamas has repeatedly protested the dunam by dunam Israeli approach to incrementally bending the rules of a status quo all parties officially underwrite, rules which do not deny to Jews or anyone else the right to visit the Haram al/Sharif Temple mount.Jack Khoury, Hamas Warns Israel It Will 'Intervene' During Ramadan if Al-Aqsa Status Quo Violated Haaretz 15 March 2023 This is also what all Palestinians underwrite because it is part of their shared collective memory, ever since in the 1920s postcards with Herzl's image and the Israeli flag over the area were accompanied by constant attempts to alter the Ottoman status quo at the Wall, all leading to bloody massacres. Editors should be familiar at least with the endless pressures to alter the 1967 status quo, where the rabbinical judgment was quite severe against Jews entering the Haram, by creating new facts on the ground. Hamas has often referred to the necessity of maintaining the status quo (which finds nothing objectionable in visits by other confessions, as long as a precedent is not introduced underhand that proclaims an intent towards changing the exclusive Muslim religious character of the Haram al-Sharif). Nishidani (talk) 10:10, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

• Please see this BBC[76] link which attributes Hamas spokesperson, Fawzi Barhoum saying "To the world, our message is: Hamas is not radical. We are a pragmatic and civilized movement. We do not hate the Jews. We only fight who occupies our lands and kills our people." Bringtar (talk) 09:07, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

  There are many more sources such as this by the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars on "Doctrine of Hamas". Bringtar (talk) 09:13, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

  The article is about the war Hamas started in the name of Al-Aqsa, which RS say they justified on the basis of recent Jewish visits to the site. If you have sourcing linking their attack to supposed threats to its "exclusive Muslim religious character" we could write that instead. But there needs to be some contextualization for the reader unfamiliar with history as to what "desecration of Al-Aqsa" means. That's not a molehill and your long-winded defense of "Muslim exclusivity" suggests you know it's not. PrimaPrime (talk) 18:50, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

The article is not about 'the war started in the name of Al-Aqsa', which is almost comically ignorant as a judgment, and only sustainable if one cherrypicks one phrase from a specific annoucement among hundreds, in order per WP:OR assert against all geopolitical analyses available, that Hamas had no other considerations in mind when deciding to launch an invasion of Israel. Everyone, I mean everyone who knows anything about this, is well aware of the multiple factors involved, not least of which was disrupting the Abraham Accords. So your insistence is a WP:Undue violation, dumbing down a very complex world. One of Hamas's enemies in the Islamic world is Jordan. Jordan expressed exactly the same outrage as Hamas over the challenges to the status quo last year, constant anger at the wave of encroachments on the Temple Mount over 2023. Neither Hamas nor Jordan to my knowledge have fussed over Jews visiting the Mount, which they have been doing uncontroversially since 1967 (when the decision was taken not to blow up the mosques, as was mooted at the time). As Henry Laurens puts it:

Relations between Netanyahu’s government and King Abdullah II were already very bad: Jordan, which wants to have a role of guardian of the holy places in Jerusalem, protested vehemently against the encroachments of the Israeli government on the Mosques esplanade.

This article is about the Hamas-Israeli war, and the background or motivations involved have by now an extensive technical literature written by geopolitical analysts with expertise, none of whom, to my knowledge, assert (it would be fatuous to do so) that Hamas went to war because Jews visited the Haram al-Sharif.Nishidani (talk) 01:33, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

PrimaPrime, I am not sure from where you are getting these information because as Nishidani has pointed out above, there are multiple reasons and one of these is the 2023 Al-Aqsa clashes between Palestinians and Israeli police such as In April, Israeli police raided Jerusalem’s Al Aqsa Mosque compound, Islam’s third holiest place of worship, triggering rocket attacks from Gaza and many more available. Bringtar (talk) 05:19, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

Arbitrary break

While it's quite amusing to hear arguments why Jews are not supposed to pray at the Temple mount, whether they are made by Hamas leaders or Wikipedia editors, I think this discussion misses the mark. The real question is why we are including Hamas's justifications but not experts' views on the reasons of the attack in the lede (e.g., proving its resistance credentials, scuttling the Saudi deal). There should be less of the former and more of the latter. Alaexis_¿question? 20:18, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

It has nothing to do with wiki editors or Hamas leaders, but with the halakha rulings so far in place since 1967, which rabbinical authorities imposed on Jews. To make out that those who recall the latter are playing a pro=Hamas card is ridiculous.

For decades, religious authorities issued strict prohibitions against visiting the Temple Mount, widely considered to be the holiest site for Jews, on the grounds that people could accidentally defile the site. And until relatively recently, these bans were accepted by the overwhelming majority of Israel’s Jewish public.In recent years, however, a relatively small but intensely dedicated faction from Israel’s so-called “national-religious” camp — Orthodox Jews generally associated with right-wing, hawkish politics and crocheted yarmulkes — has chipped away at that consensus view of halacha, or Jewish law, issuing rulings that allow or even require visits to the Temple Mount — to some parts of it, anyway, and under certain conditions. With those dueling rulings in place, more and more religious Jews have felt comfortable ascending the Temple Mount — often immersing themselves in a purifying mikveh beforehand — which has enabled the activists to slowly alter what is considered acceptable behavior for Jews on the esplanade.'Judah Ari Gross, Fighting rabbinic ban, Jewish activists push Temple Mount prayer toward mainstream The Times of Israel 2 June 2022 Nishidani (talk) 01:49, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

Posting edit request for non-ECP editor from RPP

I saw this request recently posted at RPP Wikipedia:Requests for page protection#2023 Israel–Hamas war by @22090912l: and decided I should be reposted here for a response.

"In the "Casualties" section, change:

"The Financial Times reported that how Palestinian families would have multiple generations living in a single multistory building has had the effect of those families being nearly completely wiped out by airstrikes."

to

"The Financial Times reported that multiple Palestinian families have been nearly completely wiped out by airstrikes as a result of those families living closely packed together in multistory buildings."

because this version is easier to understand."

I placed the brs and indents above, but the text is from the original request.

I am not expressing an opinion on the edit, just posting it here for discussion.  // Timothy :: talk  22:51, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

 Not done. The grammar in the sentence needs improving (from "that how" to just "how"), but the suggestion is not an improvement as it omits the "multiple generations" part which is the most notable aspect. Aszx5000 (talk) 19:21, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

Do we now need to include 2024 in the page name?

The war is clearly not concluded: should the page now be renamed 2023-2024 Israel–Hamas war? Dsp13 (talk) 16:09, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

@Dsp13 check out this large and ongoing related discussion Talk:2023_Israel–Hamas_war#Close_this_RM_and_create_a_new_section ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 17:16, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

Looking for Project volunteers to answer some questions

I am writing an article for WP:SIGNPOST, Wikipedia's internal newspaper and am looking for volunteers, both longer term and newer members, especially those who are part of WP:Israel/WP:Palestine projects. Feel free to directly add your answers on Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Next issue/WikiProject report and let me know if you any questions/comments. ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 01:41, 8 January 2024 (UTC)