Talk:Friendly fire during the Israel–Hamas war

Goals

Ideally this article documents all confirmed incidents of friendly fire, and appropriately weights the media-influence-/discussions about disputed incidents, e.g hospital bombings like Al-Ahli Arab Hospital explosion. This is a separate article in order to provide more depth here, without resulting in editing wars in other articles. ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 21:05, 13 January 2024 (UTC)

A month later, I don't think that the article is meeting your stated intention. Drsruli (talk) 04:17, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

Do we really need yet another CONTENTFORK for the Israel-Hamas war?

Why does this page exist other than the highlight negative acts by Israeli military authorities, which would quality this as a WP:POVFORK? We already have a page at List of friendly fire incidents where these can reside. Adding a notability tag and will prob AfD this. Longhornsg (talk) 10:29, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

This article in size would likely dwarf List of friendly fire incidents and as you can see from the running tally of IDF and Yediot Ahranot, there's also prose/space for discussion. I mentioned in the above Talk:Friendly fire during the 2023 Israel–Hamas war#Goals section that I think this topic would also benefit from a media analysis about inaccurate/exaggerated claims of friendly fire, in addition to adding claims of rocket-misfires by Hamas/PIJ and hospital bombings by Hamas or PIJ. ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 11:03, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

Problems with article

There are some significant issues with this article:

First, the Be'eri kibbutz incident is hardly "confirmed"—the cited sources say "Friendly fire may have killed…" and, the strongest terms used are the "likelihood at least some of them were killed by army fire at house where they were being held hostage." It goes without saying that "may have" and "likelihood" and "demand investigation" are not the evidence needed to list this incident in the "Confirmed incidents" section. And even if it were confirmed, terrorists refusing to release hostages from a house that's on fire—no matter how it started—isn't exactly what's traditionally meant by "friendly fire".

Likewise, the shooting of Yuval Castleman isn't a typical "friendly fire" incident: an Israeli civilian who had shot and killed Palestinian terrorists was mistaken for a terrorist and killed by arriving IDF troops. But, as above, this wasn't in the middle of a war—or even part of a planned military action. It was in the middle of a terrorist attack, and so unclear what was going on that it hardly meets the normal test of a military fratricide.

But by far the most significant problem is the general thrust, epitomized by the nonsense about the "Hannibal Directive" which has infected several other related articles. The actual Hannibal Directive has been outlawed for decades, and no one credibly suggests was actually revived. What's more, the nortorious directive never actually permitted for the killing of civilians to prevent their capture by terrorists, as it's commonly portrayed, including in this article. What's most troubling is that this section echoes a lot of the vile disinformation spread by antisemites like Hamas and its apologists—it's been part and parcel of a campaign to try to deny that Hamas deliberately targeted civilians. It's cited to unreliable sources, and clearly is linked to and pushed by the same antisemites pushing ugly WP:FRINGE- conspiracy theories. Not one credible or reliable source has provided any actual information in support of all this innuendo—no helicopters were deliberately firing on Israelis, for example—and the material falls well below the agreed standards of our encyclopedia.

As others have mentioned above: what is the point of this article? Right now it appears little more than an attempt to smear Israel by suggesting that they're deliberately killing their own people, in the hopes of somehow rehabilitating a massive terrorist massacre in which civilian women and children were very deliberately butchered, raped, tortured, mutilated, and burned alive. For shame. Ekpyros (talk) 05:56, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

I agree. Drsruli (talk) 04:15, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

Balance?

What about friendly fire at the Palestinian side? TaBaZzz (talk) 17:45, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

Rocket Failure

Even if we don't have statistics for this war yet, the article doesn't mention it at all; it's a recognized phenomenon, and it has been reckoned to account for about %30 of Gaza civilian casualties in previous combat, approximately %15 of the rockets fall back into Gaza. Drsruli (talk) 04:12, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

"Hannibal Directive"

It is a mistake to use this expression in the title. The investigative article only mentions the directive in a rhetorical sense, to draw a comparison; it does not literally mean that the Hannibal Directive was in effect; it's a metaphor. Drsruli (talk) 04:14, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

Additional Victims

• What I think should be changed (format using {{textdiff}}):

−

+

- Adi Ohana, 43, from Moshav Mavki’im and an employee at the Israel Electric Company, lost his life in an unintentional shooting at a roadblock near his home. - Niv Aivas, 25, from Jerusalem, passed away due to an unintentional shooting. - Tal Daniely, 24, from Beer Sheva, was a casualty of an unintentional shooting in Kerem Shalom. - Dani Alush, 53, from Omer, was fatally injured in an unintentional shooting by allied forces after being mistakenly identified as a terrorist.

• Why it should be changed:

Add more confirmed incidents

• References supporting the possible change (format using the "cite" button):

Bowad91017 (talk) 04:24, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

 Not done The other entries all rely on secondary sources, not an Isreali government website. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 01:29, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

@Pppery Don't quite understand the reasoning here, is the Israeli army website an unreliable source regarding friendly fire incidents against itself? Bowad91017 (talk) 14:14, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia articles should rely primarily on WP:SECONDARY sources. The fact that we've been able to build a list as long as we have means we don't need to add additional entries with WP:PRIMARY sources as the goal is to document the phenomenon, not list every instance. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 15:33, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

References

IDF airstrike and hostages

I need to carefully read this report currently in Hebrew from HaMakom ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 18:04, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

Yet another non neutral article using speculating for fact

The Commission also verified information indicating that, in at least two other cases, ISF had likely applied the Hannibal Directive,resulting in the killing of up to 14 Israeli civilians.One woman was killed by ISF helicopter fire while being abducted from Nir Oz to Gaza by militants. In another case the Commission foundthat Israeli tank fire killed some or all of the 13 civilian hostages held in a house in Be'eri. - that paragraph is weak and not sufficient sourcing to claim Hannibal directive.

also see concern I’ve listed at Hannibal directive talk as this entire premise is based on a reserve soldiers whose actual role on Oct 7 is not stated and whose opinions are presented as fact Slywriter (talk) 13:19, 30 June 2024 (UTC)

No citations in final paragraph of “Invasion of Gaza Strip”

The paragraph reads “The transparency of Israel's disclosure regarding friendly fire fatalities has made them subject to additional scrutiny, as many nations do not make such information public.”

Israeli media is subject to military censorship (https://rsf.org/en/pressure-intimidation-and-censorship-israeli-journalists-have-faced-growing-repression-past-year) and the IDF is not transparent about friendly fire incidents. Many nations absolutely do make friendly fire information public (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_friendly_fire_incidents) and hiding it has been historically considered scandalous. (https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2014/04/22/305969203/soldier-speaks-up-a-decade-after-pat-tillmans-friendly-fire-death) 2601:152:800:8DA0:A1F6:358B:98BC:2874 (talk) 16:58, 8 October 2024 (UTC)