Talk:Israel–Hamas war/Archive 45

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Archive 45

Background to the Israel-Hamas war

I agree with @CommunityNotesContributor: on the need for a new article titled Background to the Israel-Hamas war. This would help us move the late 1980s - late 2010s background there, and keep the most immediate background, around 2018 till 6 October 2023, here as a summary (of course the most immediate background would also be covered in this new article). Makeandtoss (talk) 15:22, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

Agree on the basis of making more room for child article summaries in this already large article, per previous discussion. Based on WP:SIZERULE, this shouldn't be a controversial split given the article is back to 14,000 words. CNC (talk) 17:52, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

Also agree with this content being merged to other pages as suggested below by others. CNC (talk) 14:45, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

But we already have articles like Israel-Gaza conflict, History of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, Timeline of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, Gaza blockade, etc. etc. Why can't we trim the background section while making sure that those articles contain the info that is now in the background section? Alaexis_¿question? 20:31, 1 July 2024 (UTC)

- We should not move the entire background to new page. We still need the background info on this page. Gsgdd (talk) 04:50, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

This is a notable war whose background has been extensively discussed in RS and fulfills WP's guidelines regarding WP:notability, so it deserves its own standalone article. Also, of course we still need the background info on this page, albeit in a condensed manner that only summarizes the immediate 2018-6 October 2023 background. Makeandtoss (talk) 11:16, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

How would the background article not be a fork of Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Gaza-Israel conflict, Nakba, etc.? Perhaps what's needed is an Israeli-Hamas relations article to provide the background on the relationship between these two entities. Other than that aspect, it seems we already have background articles about Israel and Gaza. I agree though that the background in this article should be significantly trimmed. Levivich (talk) 13:19, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, not sure a pure "background" article can justify its existence. An Israeli-Hamas relations relations page would be very justified; other than that, the "background" here is just the entire rest of the conflict, as already covered by other, more general pages about the conflict. Iskandar323 (talk) 14:37, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

The existence is justified by the many RS reporting on the background exclusively. Also, not entirely out of the box, there are numerous similar articles: Causes of World War I, Origins of the Six-Day War, and Rationale for the Iraq War, etc. Makeandtoss (talk) 14:51, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

"Rationale for the Iraq War" is different -- in that case, the reasons for going to war is a specific topic, given that there was a pre-war PR campaign advocating for that war; that's not just a background article, that's about a PR campaign. "Causes of World War I" I think is also not analogous because that conflict wasn't the culmination of like a larger century-long self-contained conflict like the IP conflict--it was the culmination of centuries of global geopolitical relations, but it's not like the IP conflict. "Origins of the Six-Day War," though, that one makes me think a little differently about this. I could see "Origins of" or "Causes of October 7" as a stand-alone sub-article. It seems rather obvious that the causes of or origins of Israel's attack on Gaza is the October 7 attacks, and the background for that really is the whole IP conflict. In some senses, the background for the October 7 attacks is also the whole IP conflict, but I could see a sub-article that talks about the portion of the IP conflict that specifically led to that specific attack. Such an article would go into more detail about certain aspects of IP than would be covered in the overall IP conflict article. Separate and apart from that, I can still see "Israel-Hamas relations" as a standalone (and its scope would be narrower than the IP conflict article, but broader than the "Origins of October 7" article. Levivich (talk) 15:21, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

Including the much understated political co-dependence of Hamas and, collectively, Netanyahu, Smotrich and their ilk, and Netanyahu's historic exhortations to parties such as Qatar to keep funding Hamas. Least appreciated critical background notes. Iskandar323 (talk) 15:36, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

This is a subset content of the wider article which would be Origins of the Israel-Hamas war. Although obviously the immediate spark to the war were the attacks on October 7, Israel's response cannot be decontextualized from its far-right government, settlements expansion and its decades-long murderous "mowing the lawn" doctrine. This would be like creating an article about the Origins of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. Makeandtoss (talk) 07:29, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

That's fair. Do you see a significant difference between Origins of the Israel-Hamas war vs Causes of the Israel-Hamas war? I think the latter has a clearer and narrower scope, hence I prefer that. Technically "origins" can go all the way back to the 1948-49 creation of the Gaza Strip as a geographic entity.VR _{(Please ping on reply)} 05:19, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

Indeed, so I would also support causes or background, no preference for either; although background may be less POV considering it doesn't give approval to justifications by either side. Makeandtoss (talk) 11:03, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

I'm very unclear how the segue about Hamas' designation in various countries and the UN vote is particularly relevant background information. It seems entirely tangential to the real meat. Iskandar323 (talk) 15:49, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

Agreed. Hamas' adversaries labeling them as The Bad Guys isn't particularly informative. A terrorism designation is relevant insofar as it materially impacts things, and it's not clear that the designation did materially impact anything discussed in that section. There might be a place for it elsewhere in the article. Unbandito (talk) 19:40, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

I don't think the background section is too bad. It is better than the background section of the Iranian Revolution, which is humongous! Wafflefrites (talk) 02:24, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

So are we all in agreement over creating Background of the Israel-Hamas war? Makeandtoss (talk) 11:46, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

No im opposed to the idea - the total word count approx 15000 to 15200 ( excluding infobox and references, notes etc.. )

The background should be in this article - if it is moved - less people will read it.

I will be ok to reconsider this at a later time. At this time, im opposed to this idea Gsgdd (talk) 14:24, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

I didn't propose to move it, I propose to move the bulk of it and keep the summaries here. The background is currently taking more space than the actual war, which is very unbalanced. Makeandtoss (talk) 16:03, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

I'm not sure that's the takeaway from the discussion. I'm no fan of hyper-specific spin-offs: they are clutter. Iskandar323 (talk) 15:28, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

Are you necessarily strongly opposed and can you elaborate? And regarding the similar background articles presented above? Makeandtoss (talk) 16:04, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

Here's my take on it, going through the current Israel–Hamas war#Background section, subsection by subsection:

• The opening six paragraphs -- everything above Israel–Hamas war#Hamas motives -- seems like it's belongs at (and is probably already at) Israeli–Palestinian conflict; we shouldn't fork that article by moving this content to a new article
• Israel–Hamas war#Hamas motives belongs at Hamas or some sub-article like Hamas government in the Gaza Strip, but I don't see anything here that isn't already covered somewhere else, it's basically just background about Hamas. Like, Hamas's justifications of 7 October are no different than Hamas's justifications for anything else Hamas does.
• Israel–Hamas war#Israeli policy is the Israeli version of the Hamas motives section; we already have articles about that, like Israel, Gaza Strip, Israeli–Palestinian conflict, and the many already-existing sub-articles.
• The remaining sections--Israel–Hamas war#2023 Israeli-Palestinian escalation, Israel–Hamas war#Israeli intelligence failure, and Israel–Hamas war#Israel–Saudi normalization talks--seem like they are specific enough to Israel–Hamas war to fill a spin-off article about the "background," "origin," or "causes" of the Israel–Hamas war.

So I'd support a background/origin/causes article that is very focused on the precursors leading up to this particular iteration of the conflict. Not decades of history, just the stuff in like 2023. And then I'd support, in the main Israel–Hamas war article, the entire Background section being condensed to like 3 paragraphs, with appropriate links to all these other articles. And to anyone who ends up doing this split/condensing, thank you for volunteering the time to do it :-) Levivich (talk) 16:43, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

This sounds reasonable, I would support this.

However this can't be used to justify this edit as it selectively removed only the part about the recognition of Hamas as a terrorist organisation. Alaexis_¿question? 19:16, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

That was unrelated. I removed that because it is irrelevant trivia about Hamas, not background. I mentioned this above. Iskandar323 (talk) 19:36, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

Well, there is a lot of information that is only tangentially related to the war in that section (e.g., Hamas's victory in 2006 elections). I'm okay with removing the first 6 paragraphs entirely as Levivich has suggested but if it's too radical, we can trim everything down. This particular paragraph can be summarised in one sentence "Hamas is considered a terrorist organisation by most Western countries". Alaexis_¿question? 22:11, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

How is Hamas being considered blue, white, pink, orange, or anything else in the West relevant as background to this conflict? The election is rather more relevant in that it resulted in the blockade, which created the concentration camp pressure cooker scenario. Iskandar323 (talk) 22:19, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

So guys there's an algorithm for deciding these sorts of things: "terrorist" should be included in this article if and only if it's a significant WP:ASPECT oder WP:DUE viewpoint of the Israel–Hamas war, which we determine by looking at sources about the Israel–Hamas war and seeing if they say "terrorist." I just went to bbc.com and apnews.com and looked at whatever article is on their front page about the Israel–Hamas war (BBC, AP), and neither of them say "terrorist" in their own voice (but they both say "Hamas-run"!). This is not a thorough source analysis of course, but you get the idea. (And I just remembered, BBC was a poor choice because they don't use the word "terrorism" as a matter of policy... but you get the idea.) Levivich (talk) 22:29, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

[1] “ Hamas, or in some cases its armed wing alone, is considered a terrorist group by Israel, the US, the EU, and the UK, among others.” -BBC Wafflefrites (talk) 22:52, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

It's still meta background, not actual background, but if it was a sentence that short I probably would have ignored it ... but it's not. It's extensive. Iskandar323 (talk) 06:35, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

I support the attempted removal of the two sentences presenting the labeling of Hamas in the Background section. Deletion improves the article. I don't see how it pertains materially to the causes of this war. Moreover, it preferences a view maintained by one of the belligerents and its supporters that collectively comprise 35 / 193 UN member states. Even the 2018 labeling initiative was supported by a minority of UN member states. It may be appropriate to include these two sentences in a related article as a "background to the background." Chino-Catane (talk) 22:30, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

Concluding

So seems from the above discussions that there is general agreement among users for three things:

1- that this article should contain a concise immediate background only and not the meta background

2- that the meta background going back decades is better moved to other existing articles

3- that a more detailed immediate background deserves its own standalone article named Background of the Israel-Hamas war, which would also include a very brief meta background

For this article, I would be ready to trim the background section into only three concise subsections covering the immediate background:

A- on Hamas and dealing with its justifications and the situation in Gaza and the Palestinian territories in 2023

B- focusing on Israel and its policy towards Hamas and Gaza and its intelligence failure in the lead up to the war

C- one on regional aspects relating to US-supported Saudi-Israeli normalization plans and any related international context

Makeandtoss (talk) 09:14, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

LGTM, with one caveat just to be very clear: I do think the article should actually give some of the "meta background," the really broad strokes just to place the current event in a little bit of historical context. So, for example, these facts should probably be relayed: that there has been an Israeli-Palestinian conflict going on for ~100 years [and maybe that Israel was established in 1948]; that Gaza had been occupied by Israel since 1967; Hamas was founded in the 80s to fight against it; the 2005 pull-out and blockade since then; that there have been multiple previous rounds of fighting throughout this history. All of that can be done in like a few sentences. Maybe that's the first paragraph of the three paragraphs, or the beginning of the first paragraph. What I'm saying is we don't want to go so far as to suggest that the history began in 2023, but we also don't need to delve into that meta-background beyond some basic facts and dates. Levivich (talk) 16:30, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

+1 Selfstudier (talk) 16:33, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

Edited accordingly. Makeandtoss (talk) 16:40, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

Agree that pre-2023 should be contained to a mere paragraph with links to main articles. Personally I think the Background article should be split off first, to avoid the controversy of over-trimming. Trimming can come later after a split, in order to reduce the section down to a summary of the child article. It's otherwise not necessary to remove it from a a split article I don't believe. Arguments that the background is vital context I otherwise agree with, and based on this it deserves to be it's own standalone article per summary guidelines as "a complete encyclopedic article in its own right". But fundamentally it doesn't need to be based here, given it's also notable enough to be a standalone. CNC (talk) 17:14, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

Implementation

The article has been created and the entire background section simply copy pasted there ==> Background to the Israel-Hamas war. Next steps in this order:

1- Trim any excessive meta background from that article

2- Creating a lede for that article

3- Trim the background section here into three immediate background subsections as was elaborated above, but with one paragraph acting as a very brief meta introduction

I will start working on this tomorrow and anyone is welcome to join. Makeandtoss (talk) 14:04, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

I think stick to the format of summary guidelines. It should be similar to the lead of the child article; in this case based on article size (2,700 words), it should be a two to three paragraphs, four at most. There is no reason to have sub-sections for this; child articles are not summarised with sub-sections, they are summarised in a single section. With a decent summary, it can then be copied over to the lead of the new article. CNC (talk) 14:47, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

We have already agreed on the subsections part, but let's see how it goes later and whether we decide on something else along the lines of your suggestion. Makeandtoss (talk) 14:51, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

Fair enough, I missed that part. Hopefully it can just be combined into a single section summary. CNC (talk) 14:54, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

Are you opposed to me doing more aggressive trimming here to clean up? At the moment the "summary" looks like a duplicate of the child article and the WP:SPLIT procedure hasn't been completed yet (ie part 6) CNC (talk) 13:51, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

I have completed the intro part, the three subsections mentioned above still remaining to be trimmed and reorganized. Makeandtoss (talk) 19:24, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

Have done a major trim to get it to a four paragraph summary, this includes main summaries of each section within two paragraphs. The exceptions are "Israeli intelligence failure" and "Israel–Saudi normalization talks". The former section isn't really directly a background to the war, but more an analysis of 7 October itself. The latter is mainly Biden's opinion on why the war stated (there's one line at best to include there), but based on sourcing doesn't appear due. Naturally all detailed non-summary content and unnecessary content was removed per wp:summary. CNC (talk) 15:18, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

In hindsight I added in the summary line from "Israel–Saudi normalization talks". The first two sentences of "Israeli intelligence failure" could be better summarised into one and returned, but as I said I don't think it adds much to the background summary. To me it seems more like extra info regarding 7 October, that's already covered in Israeli government response to the 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel, which in turn is summarised in 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel. CNC (talk) 15:31, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

Review

Ok ignore first comment, included a summary of "Israeli intelligence failure" afterall as appears a lot more due than an opinion from Al-Qassam Brigades head, especially given Hamas officials state the reason for the attack just above. So that should be a thorough and balanced summary of all the background sections now. CNC (talk) 19:19, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

Pretty much a good summary, thanks for taking the initiative. Although I think there is a few minor points to be addressed, including removing the US-centric POV relating to the intelligence part, and on the Saudi-Israeli normalization. Also the part about Netanyahu's support to Hamas seems misleading; he was not just benignly supporting it by giving work permits to Gazans, he was, in his words, actively and malevolently supporting Hamas to weaken the PA and thwart a Palestinian state, as have his right-wing ministers explicitly long boasted of how they viewed Hamas as an asset. This point of view is very underrepresented. I will check later to see if there are any more points that needs to be addressed. Makeandtoss (talk) 22:03, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

I think you're right about the US-centric intelligence summary, Egypt should be included in there as well. As you might of noticed I did a very much "hack and chop" based summary based on most notable sentence summaries, so no doubt it could be vastly improved. I encourage you to improve as you see fit. CNC (talk) 21:09, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

RFC on Gaza Health Ministry qualifier

Please see Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard#RFC - Gaza Health Ministry qualifier. RAN1 (talk) 23:31, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

Individual attacks

Regarding this edit, we cannot mention every single strike or killing in the main article about the war. The sources supporting the added content are news pieces published only a short time after the event and do not prove that these events had a major and lasting impact on the conflict. I'm pinging @Unbandito:, @SPECIFICO: who commented on my talkpage. Alaexis_¿question? 08:57, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

Isn't it being mentioned because of the individual's notability? What's wrong with that? The poem part maybe doesn't need to be there tho. Selfstudier (talk) 11:02, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

The edit in question does not mention every single strike or killing in the war, it mentions two of the most culturally salient killings of the war. Hind and Refaat's deaths have received significant coverage in the press and have been taken up and memorialized in pro-Palestinian protests around the world. I'm curious what criteria you and @SPECIFICO are using to evaluate notability where the two most recognizable martyrs of the Palestinian cause in this war are considered non-notable.

Refaat has been memorialized regularly in the press and in the world of writing and poetry. A sample of his notability here: [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] Brian Cox's reading of Refaat's poem has nearly 100,000 views on Youtube and 70,000 shares on Instagram. My local library bought dozens of copies of Gaza Writes Back after Refaat was killed. Students at Penn, Berkeley, and Portland State unofficially renamed campus buildings after Refaat during pro-Palestinian protests.

Similarly, the killing of Hind Rajab, her family, and the rescue workers trying to save them received coverage from every major news outlet: [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] According to ABC, Hind's death has sparked widespread outrage as the audio of the PRCS call went viral on social media. Her name has become a rallying cry across the world. Protestors at Columbia unofficially renamed Hamilton Hall as Hind's Hall during their historic occupation of the building. The UN and the US State Department have commented on her death.

A google trends analysis shows that Hind and Refaat had a stronger and more lasting impact on the search engine than Marwan Issa, whose reported killing is included in this article. In my opinion there is no question as to the notability of these events. Unbandito (talk) 18:37, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

This is not an article about search engines. It is UNDUE and RECENTISM to elevate these two above the tens of thousands of other civilians killed in Gaza. SPECIFICO talk 03:00, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

This is not an article about search engines.

That's a rather reductive response to my comment. I realized the links I included in my comment aren't visible on mobile (I'll fix that later), so I wanted to make sure you got the chance to look at the other links I provided to establish notability. They pretty clearly show an initial large spike in notable reporting about the persons in question, followed by continued (if less intense than the initial) coverage of those people, their families, their deaths and their legacy. This is also reflected in the search trends analysis. I don't see how WP:UNDUE and WP:RECENTISM negate the evidence I've provided here of notability. Reading the policies now, it seems to me that:

WP:UNDUE says that 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. These events have been introduced to the article at the lowest level of detail. They aren't detailed enough to have concerns over the due representation of varying viewpoints.

WP:RECENTISM, though more applicable here, is an essay. In the examples section, the essay warns against news spikes

An event that occurs in a certain geographic region might come to dominate an entire article about that region ... The solution: an article on the Effect of Hurricane Katrina on New Orleans was created to collect this quickly accumulating content.

and article imbalance, which seems limited to me in its applicability to a one or two sentence mention in the timeline of the war. I don't see how these edits run the risk of either of those problems. Given that standalone articles exist on these topics and they are in the template at the bottom of the page, they should receive a mention in the timeline. Unbandito (talk) 13:27, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

He is notable as an individual, I'm not arguing with that and that's why we have an article about him. It doesn't automatically mean that his death should be mentioned in the main article about the conflict. As an example, Vivian Silver is also a notable person killed during this conflict, however it doesn't mean that we have to mention her in this article.

Please note that there are links to articles about Alareer and Silver in Template:Israel–Hamas war which is present in most articles about this conflict. Alaexis_¿question? 07:20, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

Uh huh, so all these Hamas commanders that Israel kills, they all need to come out too, right? I mean if we are going to have a rule that no individual deaths are mentioned in this article, I can go with that. Selfstudier (talk) 08:39, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

Well, some of these commanders like Marwan Issa and Mohammed Deif (maybe) are major figures. They are mentioned by name in this overview by HRW, for example.

In other cases, it's necessary for NPOV. If we write about an attack with dozens of casualties (according to the Gaza Ministry of Health) we should definitely mention if a senior commander was killed. The alternative is not to mention individual attacks, which I'm not against if it's applied consistently. Alaexis_¿question? 16:30, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

Some individual deaths are more notable than others? How will we determine that? If the individuals are themselves notable and their deaths are mentioned in RS, right? Can't have it both ways. Selfstudier (talk) 17:35, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I do not object to a one-sentence mention of Vivian Silver in this article. I think adding information about notable individuals whose deaths received media and public attention helps to preserve some of what it felt like to watch the events of this war unfold in real time, which is an important aspect of historical memory that is too often lost due to a lack of documentation. Unbandito (talk) 12:45, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

An encylopedia is the place for description, not evocation. Removals of UNDUE military deaths is a good idea. Proposals as to which ones and why would be the next step. SPECIFICO talk 16:55, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 24 July 2024

Moved from Talk:Israeli incursions in the West Bank during the Israel–Hamas war

 - Left guide (talk) 03:42, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

Sorry for making the edit request in this article, but I can't edit the talk page of the article I'm interested in. In the penultimate paragraph of this section, a recent Yemeni attack is mentioned, but the section in question is only for incidents related to the West Bank. Could somebody please remove that incident from section? The event is already in section of Yemen and the Red Sea anyway. Thanks--126.36.250.227 (talk) 03:24, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

 Erledigt I moved this to the correct section and merged the text with the existing paragraph, thanks for pointing it out. Jamedeus (talk) 03:52, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

Lancet article

The above discussion focused on how to convey the information from Lancet RS, but now it has been removed from the lede. What is the level of support for its restoration? Makeandtoss (talk) 10:08, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

(Haaretz) The War Will End, but Gazans Will Continue to Die Months and Years Later, also mentions the Lancet:

"In an article published in The Lancet at the beginning of the month, three public health experts warned that even if the war ended now, Gazans would continue to die from its effects: There will continue to be many indirect deaths in the coming months and years from causes such as communicable and non-communicable diseases and medical complications due to the destruction of health-care infrastructure; severe shortages of food, water, and shelter, and the overcrowding in the displaced persons camps."

and expounds further on these factors. Selfstudier (talk) 10:13, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

Just to add Haaretz and Al Jazeera are RS per WP. Also France24 wrote "Some NGOs active in the Palestinian territory certainly feel that the estimate put forward in this letter is credible," citing Doctors of the World. [18]. Makeandtoss (talk) 10:34, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

I have no objection to including the language Haaretz uses. GordonGlottal (talk) 20:47, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

I'm having trouble finding a prior lede that included it, do you have a link handy? If it's similar to Haaretz' language, I think that's probably fine, but if it involves the 186,000 figure, I'm not sure about it. The authors have used language like "not implausible" and "purely illustrative", while Michael Spagat called it "implausible". It's fine to discuss it elsewhere, but some nuance/qualifications are needed, and there isn't much room for that in the lede. — xDanielx ^T/_C\^R 21:37, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

Why does the infobox not change in revision history?

Is it just me or the the infobox not change when you view older edits? I went all the way back to an edit from April and the infobox did not change. Alexysun (talk) 23:27, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

Please see Template:Israel–Hamas war infobox. You can also edit it by clicking the edit option in the infobox. Pachu Kannan (talk) 06:00, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

Needs Update tag on casualties

@Pachu Kannan I'm the one who updated the casualty count in the first place. But simultaneously I added the Needs Update tag to the "52% women and children" line because the 52% is based on the initial 24k IDs released by GHM in April. GHM released an additional 4k IDs today so the percentage could now be updated as well, to as-of 30 June. So far as I know, no one has processed this data yet, but the GHM will probably release their demos soon. In this context though also note that the BBC got different numbers from the GHM looking at the first batch of IDs so another outside analysis would be ideal. GordonGlottal (talk) 01:42, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

Update: according to the GHM there is no change at all, 33.2% of IDed casualties were under 18 as of June 2024 and 18.9% were female 18+. So still 52% total. I assume this is a cumulative number because the reported change month-to-month shrinks over time. Ideally the BBC or etc. will run their own check. GordonGlottal (talk) 02:37, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

GHM reported on 31 May that the 26,493 then IDed were 29.4% under 18 and 20.5% female 18+. In the new 30 June update the GHM says that as of 31 May 33.5% were under 18 and 19.2% female 18+. Very strange. They also appear to have revised the 30 April number from the 31.6/20.1 then reported to 33.6/19.2. They don't release the date of report or reported date of death so it's impossible to tell whether these correspond to new backdated reports. I also notice that the UN has not updated its numbers since 30 April; even the report from today says "as of 30 April". There may have been some unreported drop in data quality. GordonGlottal (talk) 03:06, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

I removed needs update tag because I think AP News source include updated data on casualties. Please verify it. Thank you in advance. Pachu Kannan (talk) 05:32, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

Sorry for taking some time for giving reply. It is because of my busy real life. Pachu Kannan (talk) 06:03, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

Recent lede changes

@GordonGlottal: Why did you remove the information about indirect deaths and people trapped under rubble? And why did you remove mentions of Israel's settlement expansion and clashes in the West Bank, a major occurrence during this war? Makeandtoss (talk) 12:56, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

I reverted the phrasing about the Axis of Resistance because the proposed version made it seem as if it is a monolith, rather than a series of semi-independent groups. Makeandtoss (talk) 12:57, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

A few wordings that I changed:

• I don't think "plight" is the sort of word we should ever put in wikivoice, too pathos-y.
• I changed "impending famine" to "widespread food shortages" because the source was dated 2/27/2024. We can't describe something as "impending" based on a 5-month-old source.
• I removed "cut off basic necessities" because it's redundant--we already say healthcare and food.
• I removed the line about trapped under rubble because it wasn't accurate. The Red Cross says that 6,400 total people have been reported missing since 10/7/2023. Some of those people, according to the Red Cross, probably are or were under rubble at the time of the report, but they don't say how many. Nobody can know how much overlap exists between that number and the casualty count we already include, which accounts for 13,000 reported deaths with no name attached as well as names with no body identified.
• I changed "children" to "minors" because BBC Verify has said that although the GHM doesn't describe its criteria this number corresponds to a count of (all females) + (males under 18). "Minors" is more specific than "children" and it seems to be entirely accurate.
• I think we would need an estimate specifically about indirect deaths in Gaza to include it in the lede without attribution. The Lancet correspondence piece just quotes that the average of 2008 conflicts was 4x, but the range is very wide. US-coalition wars achieved lower indirect deaths rates, and rates improved between 1992 and 2008. Or it may be higher because harder to flee, etc. And the 4x average counts deaths that continue to occur long after the conflict ends, it's not something we can say about the death rate now. A lot will depend on post-conflict politics. The same research institute put out a briefing paper in 2017 with methodological considerations. There will be research on this subject but I think the general fact that 2008 conflicts averaged 4x doesn't need to be mentioned in the lede of pages like this.
• The Houthis have not distinguished between Israeli, US, and UK ships. There are very few Israeli ships, so almost all of the ships attacked had a US or UK connection instead.
• The logic behind removing the West Bank line is that it isn't the main subject of this page. It would belong in the lede of "Israel-Palestine history 2023-2024" but I think on "Israel-Hamas war" we can cut it. The ledes on contentious pages tend to be very long because hard enough to agree without having to agree on priorities too, but if we can limit length we should.

GordonGlottal (talk) 14:08, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

Concerning the use of the word minors vs. children, I believe it was discussed on the Talk page before. "Minor" is related to the age of majority, which is usually 18 but not always, and rings of someone, to my ears at any rate, not far from adulthood or an older teenager. Using it here sounds euphemistic and, as far I can remember, sources are using children.

Arguably, a remark on the West Bank is not amiss because what is going on there is a separate but parallel thread to the situation in Gaza, and sources are often reporting on it too under the banner of the present war. Of course, Gaza information should prevail. GeoffreyA (talk) 14:52, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

There are sources that refer to Israeli actions being carried out under cover of the Gaza war, those would be relevant, certainly. Selfstudier (talk) 14:58, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

Exactly. GeoffreyA (talk) 18:26, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

I guess the terms will vary across cultures but to me "minors" means 0-18 and "children" refers to a younger population. I asked ChatGPT (one of its few good uses IMO is colloquial language) and it confirmed that The term "minors" generally refers to individuals under the age of 18. and The term "children" typically refers to individuals from birth up to around 12 years old . . . In some contexts, "children" can be used more broadly to include adolescents up to 18 years old. How about "women, children, and minors"? The AP and Al-Jazeera have used "children and minors" so it does seem possible to use them non-ovelappingly. GordonGlottal (talk) 15:22, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

Though we shouldn't put weight on what ChatGPT says, considering that LLMs are subject to hallucination, in this case, I do agree with its assessment on children. (Incidentally, the information is likely coming from Wikipedia because these LLMs are often trained on its corpus among other data.) My concern was that using minors gives the impression that children, the young ones, are not included, when the facts show they certainly are. Women, children, and minors could work, but depending on one's view, could be considered superfluous. What do other editors think? GeoffreyA (talk) 18:25, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

RS are using "children" to describe the Palestinians killed in Gaza, not minors. Also, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child defines child as, "A human being below the age of 18 years unless under the law applicable to the child, majority is attained earlier." Makeandtoss (talk) 10:18, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

As I linked in the previous edit, RS have used "children" and "minors" and "children and minors". A wiki page is not a legal document for international human rights lawyers, and terms with technical definitions at odds with colloquial use will confuse our readership. GordonGlottal (talk) 03:06, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

Plight is not used in WP voice but attributed to Hamas at the beginning of the sentence. Source was updated on famine, and per WP link. Cut off basic necessities like water and electricity and medicine goes beyond food and health sector so not redundant. Children per RS and UN definition, not minors.

As for the removal of the sentence on the indirect Palestinian deaths, this is pretty much personal original research going against RS findings like the Lancet.

About the trapped figures, no need to specify we can just say "thousands" per RS [19].

As for the removal of West Bank settlement expansion and clashes, this is a major component of war, as per RS. [20] [21] Makeandtoss (talk) 10:23, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

There are no "RS findings like the Lancet". They published a letter about the indirect casualties which is not a peer-reviewed article. Alaexis_¿question? 11:30, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

Peer review is not a requirement of RS. Selfstudier (talk) 11:31, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

^ Peer review is a requirement of scientific papers, not of RS. Makeandtoss (talk) 13:17, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

• It may have been your intent to write "the Hamas-alleged plight of Palestinians" but that's a grammatically impossible parsing of the actual sentence. You can't say "alleged . . . the plight of Palestinians" in English, so "as well as alleged threats to the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the plight of Palestinians" means "as well as alleged threats to Al-Aqsa and the [non-alleged] plight of Palestinians". It needs to be something that can occupy the same position in the sentence word order, so something plural or uncountable like "mistreatment."
• The Lancet correspondence article does not present "findings" because it is not the result of research. It's at best an opinion piece that has to be attributed and doesn't belong in the lede. The Lancet proper, where research is published, requires authors to specify what criteria were used to determine which data points were relevant, and how the method used fits a research design. I'm just clarifying from the Lancet correspondence authors' source what the number they quote actually means.
• The Save the Children article is published on June 24 but source for this claim is PCD in April, now months out of date. PCD used to say this regularly and I don't think we can assume it's still true if they've stopped.
• Can you clarify which RS says that "West Bank settlement expansion is a major component of the war"?

GordonGlottal (talk) 03:25, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

Here are some sources about how trouble in the West Bank has accelerated since, and seemingly under the cover of, the Gaza war: [22] [23] [24] [25] [26] [27] GeoffreyA (talk) 07:29, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

That's not what I meant; the sentence starts with: "Hamas said its attack was in response to.....the plight of Palestinians." The alleged part followed by threats ends there and does not extend to the plight part. This is perfectly grammatically correct.

Lancet correspondence article is clearly based on desk research as evidenced by the use of references in it; a desk research letter published in one of the world's most prestigious medical journals. I do not understand the objection to this and does not seem to based on any legitimate concerns.

If an RS publishes something on 24 June using April data, then we follow the RS and reflect that on WP.

The sources about settlement expansion under the cover of war were provided by GeoffreyA above. Makeandtoss (talk) 10:23, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

• Makeandtoss, you wrote previously that Plight is not used in WP voice but attributed to Hamas. Are you now agreeing that's not true? The problem isn't assuming Hamas' statements about their motives are true, which I agree we don't currently do, the problem is referring to the situation as a "plight" in wikivoice. It's just not an encyclopedic word because its function is to provoke emotion.
• I don't understand what you mean about the Lancet correspondence. It's not based on any data about the Israel-Hamas war, "desk research" or otherwise. All it does is quote that SAS research shows that the average ratio of direct:indirect deaths in 2008 was 1:4, and apply that ratio to the then-most-recent reported Gaza casualty count to produce 186k. Should we just multiply the reported casualty count of every modern conflict by 5 and put that number in the lede without attribution?? No other page does this.
• I don't think it makes any sense to say that a number must be current if its still appearing in fourth-hand citations, even if the actual source is now 4 months old. Numbers continue to float around. Save the Children claims that "the UN estimates that 10,000 people" are buried as of June 24, but that simply isn't true. The UN attributes this claim: "More than 10,000 people are estimated to be missing under rubble in Gaza, according to the Palestinian Civil Defense" and it most recently said this on May 1, because the estimate is from April. Again, the PCD included this number in their statements for months, but has not since April. Anyway, no source can tell us what the relationship between this number and the reported casualty count is, so if we include it (dated, attributed) we have to be careful that we don't suggest this is just in addition to the 39k as before.
• i just think the West Bank line is among the most-strikable and the lede was too long, but as I said before "The ledes on contentious pages tend to be very long because hard enough to agree without having to agree on priorities too". I bow to this reality. — GordonGlottal (talk) 12:02, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

  • "Hamas said its attack was in response to.....the plight of Palestinians." Everything after in response to is attributed to Hamas, including "plight of...". This is grammatically correct.
  • "Should we just multiply the reported casualty count of every modern conflict by 5 and put that number in the lede without attribution?? No other page does this." As WP editors we reflect RS and it is not our job to make our own conclusions.
  • "About 6,400 Palestinians reported as missing to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) since the outbreak of the war in Gaza on 7 October are yet to have been found, the group has said. Many are believed to be trapped under debris, buried without identification, or held in Israeli detention while others have been separated from their loved ones, who have been unable to contact them. Approximately 1,100 new cases of missing people have been registered and remain unsolved since April, the ICRC said." [28] This is the latest RS on the topic. We can rephrase to say: "while thousands remain missing including under the rubble." As a compromise?
  • I get this is your confirmation that you wouldn't oppose the re-addition of the part on settlements after seeing the RS?

  Makeandtoss (talk) 12:24, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

  • That's not true. Why would the word "alleged" appear at all if so? I try to be generous on here in assuming that readers are always correct when it comes to clarity. The sentence currently assumes the premise that the situation is a "plight".
  • I don't know what that means or how it is intended to respond to the point I made. For what are you claiming to rely on RS?
  • I already reminded you that we do not have any source claiming that this number is entirely or in any specific part in addition to the numbers reported by the GMO. We cannot say "while" because we don't know that it's true. The Gazan authorities have reported 14,000 deaths without an associated name, and many of these correspond to unclaimed bodies. It's frustrating but the data challenges mean that these families may never find out whether their loved ones' bodies are already counted and buried; anyway we have no way of knowing. I think missing makes sense as an EFN on the casualty count, not as a clause by itself.
  • I don't think any of the sources Geoffrey posted substantiate the claim I asked about, which was West Bank settlement expansion is a major component of the war. But we can't fight over everything at once.
  • Can I assume that points 2,3, and 7, to which you never responded, are agreed? Also that we can move forward with the "children and minors" compromise?

  GordonGlottal (talk) 19:58, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

  • I will leave others to weigh in on the grammar part.
  • I will open a new discussion relating to the Lancet article.
  • Okay, then we can just say thousands are missing, including being under the rubble.
  • "As Israel carries out a devastating war on Gaza, settlers are exploiting the lack of global attention on the occupied West Bank to expel Palestinians from their land there." [29] + Under the Cover of War, Israel Plans to Build a New Neighborhood for Jews in East Jerusalem
  • Regarding point 2 there is still impending famine as of now. I did respond to point 3 as basic necessities include water and electricity which were not mentioned. As for point 7 Houthis attacked civilian Israel-linked ships and military western ships [30]. Compromises are made based on WP policy and RS; i.e. they are made for valid reasons and not just for the sake of it. RS explicitly and unanimously say children, and almost never minors.

  Makeandtoss (talk) 10:06, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

  Can I ask you generally to respond specifically to the changes in language we're discussing? Our time is valuable.

  • You say "Houthis attacked civilian Israel-linked ships and military western ships" which is perfectly true, but what does in mean in relation to what I proposed which is changing "linked to Israel" to "linked to Israel, the US, and the UK" because "The Houthis have not distinguished between Israeli, US, and UK ships. There are very few Israeli ships, so almost all of the ships attacked had a US or UK connection instead."
  • You haven't offered a single source which says that the action there is part of the war, as you claimed, instead of happening simultaneously, and I won't keep going in circles.
  • "Okay, then we can just say thousands are missing, including being under the rubble." What is your source for this? What is your proposed language? Why does it belong in the lede?
  • Re famine, your source says the exact opposite of what you claim. The IPC reported on 10 March that Famine is imminent in the northern governorates and projected to occur anytime between mid-March and May 2024. That's why we say "impending famine" on the page, but months later it turned out to be wrong. The IPC reported on 24 June that In the northern governorates, despite some disruptions, in March and April the amount of food deliveries and nutrition services provided increased, allowing for nutrition prevention and treatment programmes to start. These evolutions appear to have temporarily alleviated conditions. In this context, the available evidence does not indicate that Famine is currently occurring. The topline of the 24 June report was that A high risk of Famine persists across the whole Gaza Strip as long as conflict continues, markedly different from the 10 March report. This difference is also reflected in the Reuters writeup; compare it to the March one [31] Let's please update to "a high risk of famine" or etc. I used "widespread food shortages" because I think it would be better to use a description of what's already happened instead of a prediction, but the important thing is to say something true.
  • We are not under any obligation whatsoever to use the exact language of RS instead of synonyms. Do you have a valid objection to "children and minors"? I would also be fine with saying "children (0-18)" the point is to be clear.

  GordonGlottal (talk) 22:02, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

  On the question of grammar, I think I've got to the bottom of it. It has been said that "the adjective is the enemy of the noun," and that seems to be the case here. What's happening is that "alleged" is lifting threats to Al-Aqsa Mosque out of attribution (to Hamas), bringing it into encyclopedic voice, when indeed, everything from start to end is supposed to be attributed to Hamas. In other words, "alleged" is a tautology. The solution would be to delete the word, but doubtless that will cause more controversy. GeoffreyA (talk) 21:22, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

  Correct; I disagree. I'm willing to discuss further but Geoffrey, do you have any objection to changing "the plight" to "mistreatment" as I initially proposed? No one here has offered any argument against. Or feel free to offer a third proposal. GordonGlottal (talk) 21:29, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

  Talking about facts rather than attributed statements, I think "mistreatment" is on the right track but understates the reality. If we are talking about attributed statements, Al Jazeera reads: "Israeli atrocities against Palestinians over the decades." Hamas's 16-page document, pp. 5–6, says more, referencing Palestinian prisoners as well as those living in refugee camps. In short, "mistreatment" could work but leads to narrowing and toning down. GeoffreyA (talk) 17:42, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

Question

Wouldn't it be better if we named this article "Arab-Israeli war (2023-Present)"? BaharatlıCheetos2.0'ın devamı (talk) 20:55, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

Are there reliable sources that refer to this conflict by this name? Alaexis_¿question? 21:23, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

This wouldn't be fair because, unlike the other Arab-Israeli wars, we don't have any actual Arab states fighting against Israel in this conflict. I do however agree that the article should be renamed "Israel-Gaza war" since there seem to be many different organisations in Gaza resisting Israeli operations. маsтегрнатаLк 22:13, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

Map change

I'm thinking we should probably replace the light blue on the map (indicating the furthest Israeli advance) with blue dotted lines as per the updated map at ISW: https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/2e746151991643e39e64780f0674f7dd

I had previously criticized ISW for its failure to update the map of Gaza weeks after the April 7 withdrawal, but this appears to be a pretty accurate representation of the current areas of control.

Many sources also indicate that Palestinian control or at least "presence" has returned to many of the areas indicated as light blue on the map. If we do not want to make these fully Palestinian red I'd suggest they be a lighter shade of red. Evaporation123 (talk) 19:09, 26 July 2024 (UTC)

The map seems to be based on IDF sources, including its awful terminology ("clearing operations", "infiltrated by militias", etc.). Besides, shading on the map and in the legend don't match. I'm not comfortable using it as a reliable source. — kashmīrī ^TALK 14:53, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

ISW is biased in favor of Israel, but it is still considered a reliable source, similar to how Al Jazeera is biased against Israel but still considered a reliable source. I don't see bias problems with the terminology you mentioned, after all it is a guerrilla war from the Palestinian side. Also, the ISW map does in fact line up with what many news source say about current lines of control. ISW just goes further to make a map out of it. Evaporation123 (talk) 18:35, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

Gotta agree here with Evaporation123 here, largely for the same reasons. Could you specify what shading on the map doesn't match with the shading in the legend, and how that'd speak to their usability as a source? I totally get your disdain for any source that reports what the IDF says, but that's really all they're doing interspersed with an analysis of the war. Every reported statement has a source cited, they clearly attribute their quotes and every source I've checked has been accurately represented.

As an example of the quality of their sourcing, they said in their July 28th "Iran Update" that "Hezbollah likely conducted the July 27 rocket attack that killed 12 Israeli children in Majdal Shams, Golan Heights." That's their assessment of the evidence that they then present and cite sources for, namely that "Hezbollah claimed the Falaq-1 attack targeting Maale Golani at 1229 ET, roughly one hour after the first reports of a rocket impact at Majdal Shams." citing a post from an (apparently) known Hezbollah telegram account taking credit for an attack in that region targetting a "barracks" with unguided rockets ("katyusha") before reporting of the civilian deaths occurred. They also cite for that same statement a times of israel military correspondent in the region who tweeted about the rockets landing in the region.

So I'm not really seeing good reasons to not consider them an RS. Just my two cents. Chuckstablers (talk) 20:07, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

@Chuckstablers: Given that the children weren't in any way Israeli, I have little confidence in anything that IDF says. Also, to claim that Hezbolah fired a Falaq-1 just because they fired Katyushas borders absurdity.

Shading: Are the vertical navy lines on the map the same or different to the diagonal purple lines in the legend? — kashmīrī ^TALK 22:18, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

I'm unsure what we're talking about with children here @Kashmiri. My comment was on the use of the ISW as a source. Their analysis will reflect the nature of their organization; a Washington DC thinktank, but there's nothing in WP:RS that says that all sources have to be free from any bias.

WP:UBO; they've been extensively cited by news organizations in their reporting on the war. They've also been extensively used as a source on wikipedia in the article about the Russo-Ukrainian war.

WP:RSCONTEXT: They're a well established think tank that exists to analyze war (in their mission statement). They've done so in the past with the Russo Ukranian war and were widely cited by both western and international news agencies in their coverage of the war (just google news search "isw says" to find examples of this in the last week). This is a war and they've reported on it. It seems that the context supports their use as a source.

Is there a policy based argument (citing WP:"") like I did that you could offer arguing why the ISW shouldn't be used as a source in this article in light of the policy that you're referencing?

PS: With the map, your issue is that the colors don't match up? I looked at it, if we're both interpreting it correctly then yea, it looks like the legend wasn't updated along with the map. This is a minor issue and the solution should be obvious. What's the issue? Chuckstablers (talk) 02:00, 2 August 2024 (UTC)

I'm unsure what we're talking about with children here You gave an example of an ISW update about children and I showed you that even your example got the basic facts wrong while parroting one side's propaganda line.

they've been extensively cited by news organizations in their reporting on the war. And? So has Syrian Observatory for Human Rights before it turned out to be a one-man garage initiative with opaque funding. The fact that something or someone is quoted by hurried reporters is not equivalent with their encyclopaedic credibility.

I hope I have a right to express my opposition to relying on particular sources – in general or with relation to a particular topic area – and that source reliability can be evaluated in plain English, not necessarily in WP-speak.

Re. map, if the source is biased, the map cannot be relied on. Will you accept to describe the Indo-Chinese border based on Chinese government maps? — kashmīrī ^TALK 05:12, 2 August 2024 (UTC)

According to Wikipedia, bias is fine as long as the source is reliable. Again, Al-Jazeera is biased against Israel, for example, but the Wikipedia consensus is that it is nonetheless a reliable source. Evaporation123 (talk) 18:50, 2 August 2024 (UTC)

The IDF confirmed on Twitter that Mohammed Deif was "eliminated."

Here's a link to the IDF's post: https://x.com/IDF/status/1818926099432161437?t=_8HXR1i_i5eX3k1co_jVbw&s=19 NesserWiki (talk) 22:44, 2 August 2024 (UTC)

Can we update casualties of Israeli soldiers using this source in this article and Template:Israel–Hamas war infobox

@Makeandtoss:, @NesserWiki:, @BilledMammal:, @Selfstudier:, @Alaexis:, @GordonGlottal:,@GeoffreyA:, @Unbandito:, @XDanielx: and @EkoGraf: https://www.ynet.co.il/news/article/yokra14024678 is the source. If anyone can help me by adding it, please add it. I am requesting this edit due to my busy real life. Pachu Kannan (talk) 06:24, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

Source is in Hebrew, so if another editor could give it a go. According to Google Translate, "No less than 10,000 soldiers, who were killed or wounded during the long months of fighting in the Gaza Strip, are missing from the IDF today." GeoffreyA (talk) 10:11, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

We'd need to reconcile it with the number of wounded currently in the article (13k up to January), unfortunately there is no breakdown of that figure by military/civilian status. I'm not sure how to do it. Alaexis_¿question? 16:01, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

Opening sentence

@Alaexis: Please avoid reinserting disputed material without engaging in an effort on the talk page to achieve consensus, whose burdens lies on the inserter. [32] Receiving a few rockets once a month does not mean that the war has been taking place in Israel. 7 October is one day out of a war that has been taking place for the past year. This is misleading. Makeandtoss (talk) 07:16, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

Pretty much all sources that give a general overview of the conflict describe the events which took place in Israel extensively (Britannica, CNN, BBC). It's not "just" missiles, it's also the events of October 7 and the ongoing crisis in the north which has caused many tens of thousands of people to evacuate their homes. We are not saying that the damage has been the same, we're simply stating the fact that the war took place in Israel too. Alaexis_¿question? 19:41, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

@Alaexis: The information in the provided sources are discussing the start of the war, and are not primarily discussing the war itself; they further focus on the maps of the Gaza Strip. October 7 was one day out of >300 days of war. The conflict in the north has a separate article at the Israel-Hezbollah conflict. This is a misleading equivalency that is not supported by RS. Again, the burden to achieve consensus lies on you, which there is clearly none for now. Makeandtoss (talk) 09:36, 4 August 2024 (UTC)

Well, the Britannica article as last updated *today*. Here are articles from February 2024 (4 months into the war) that also describe the events that took place in Israel at length ([33], [34]). But I think that it's you who has to present sources that give so little weight to the events in Israel to justify your wording. Alaexis_¿question? 11:29, 4 August 2024 (UTC)

@Alaexis: Britannica is a lousy tertiary source of which there is no consensus over its reliability on WP. [35]The long-standing status quo was: "chiefly in the Gaza Strip," to which you added "and Israel". The burden of demonstrating verifiability and the onus of achieving consensus lies on you as the adder of the contested addition of "and Israel". Providing sources that discuss the day of 7 October 2023, 300 days ago, does not mean that the war is taking place in Israel. Makeandtoss (talk) 11:47, 4 August 2024 (UTC)

Per WP:TERTIARY, reliable tertiary sources can help provide broad summaries of topics that involve many primary and secondary sources and may help evaluate due weight and this is exactly how I'm using it. This article definitely wasn't written in 2009 and 2010 when EB "accepted a small number of content submissions from the general public". Of course, EB is just one of the sources I've used.

Will you provide any sources that give so little weight to the events in Israel as to justify your wording? The policy definitely doesn't say that anything that's been in the article for a couple of months and has no supporting sources can stay there forever.

An alternative is to remove the location from the first sentence altogether until the consensus is achieved. Alaexis_¿question? 13:57, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

@Alaexis: I would like to remind you that editing in this article is subject to discretionary sanctions and your consistent edit warring of unsourced material into the article is extremely problematic. RS, and even Israel itself, are clear that this war is taking place in Gaza:

Associated Press: "sparked the war in Gaza"

Associated Press: "nearly 10 months of war in Gaza"

Reuters: "since the start of the war in Gaza"

CNN: "Gaza could see another 7 months of war, Israel says"

Foreign Affairs: "The Best Way to End Israel’s War in Gaza"

Waiting for your self-revert. Makeandtoss (talk) 08:56, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

There is a separate article for the attack on Israel, trying to stuff Israel in here just looks daft. Selfstudier (talk) 09:09, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

First of all, the scope of this article includes both the attack by Hamas and the Israeli response (and we have separate articles for each of these topics). Therefore, "in Israel and Gaza" is a natural wording we should use in the article per WP:LEDE. The previous wording with "chiefly" had no sources backing it up.

There are plenty of sources that refer to this conflict this way (all in 2024)

Reuters: Six months of war in Israel and Gaza In pictures: 100 days of war in Israel and Gaza

The Atlantic: War in Israel

BBC: One hundred days of the war in Gaza and Israel

Brookings Institution: War in Israel and Gaza

Committee to Protect Journalists: As we continue to monitor the war in Israel/Gaza.

However this is not the right way to assess the due weight. We need to look not at newspaper articles describing today's attack but rather at sources which describe the whole conflict and check what weight they give to the events in Israel, both in October 2023 and after that. Alaexis_¿question? 15:56, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

If I may offer my thoughts. The opening sentence, which, I think, is in the present perfect tense, talks about the war as a whole, from Oct. 7, 2023, to the present. The initial attack, which gets half a paragraph in the lead, took up one of 300-plus days; the rest took place and continues to take place in Gaza. The sentence should reflect that mathematical difference. As it stands, "in the Gaza Strip and Israel," that distinction has been erased and both are put on an equal temporal footing, which is objectively false.

Even if the war were over, and all were cast into the past tense, the argument would not change: the sentence should reflect the maths. GeoffreyA (talk) 17:42, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

Uh huh, that's essentially what I object to, the putting on an equal footing (standard hasbara), when there is no valid comparison with the scale of the Israeli killing and destruction in Gaza. Selfstudier (talk) 17:46, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

Our articles need to reflect the WEIGHT of mainstream independent RS narratives. Your view may or may not coincide with that view, but you will need to survey, evaluate, and present sourcing to establish NPOV for your proposal. A theory about quantitative comparison is not within our role as editors. SPECIFICO talk 19:29, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

I think @Makeandtoss has done a good job providing a sample of the RS that acknowledge the bulk of the fighting taking place in Gaza, and I also think we don't need to survey all 700+ sources on this page to show that it's the case when just a glance at them or a skim of the article will do. I agree @GeoffreyA that the current wording falsely equivocates the days of fighting in Israel with the last several months in Gaza. The original wording was good, the current wording should not stand, but there may be some compromise that's better than those two options. I think we can agree that the fighting between Israel and Hamas has chiefly taken place in Gaza after 7-8 October. I don't think it would be a bad idea to include a mention of the other confrontations in the war as @Alaexis has said, and that is one way we could justify including Israel in the opening sentence. However, I don't see a balanced way to include a mention of Israel without acknowledging the multilateral nature of the war. I propose the following wording, which may address some of the concerns raised in this thread. Maybe this will make no one happy, in which case we'll know it's a good compromise lol.

An armed conflict between Israel and Hamas-led Palestinian militant groups and their allies has been taking place chiefly in the Gaza Strip with other confrontations in the Gaza Envelope and southern Israel, at the Israel-Lebanon border and in the West Bank since October 2023.

Let's try it on for size.

P.S. this would all work a lot better if the page had a properly neutral and more descriptive title along the lines of Israel-Gaza war. This is a great example of how the Israel-Hamas framework is restricting and misleading. Unbandito (talk) 04:09, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

@Unbandito I agree with your arguments and support the proposed reading, which I think is an improvement over the previous and current one, reflecting the reality better. GeoffreyA (talk) 07:11, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

The Israel-Hamas war is not exactly a multilateral war, but rather a war that has spilled over to cause other wars and conflicts such as the Israel–Hezbollah conflict (2023–present) and 2024 Iran–Israel conflict, which are separate articles of their own; and also because Hamas is chiefly based in Gaza.

The opening paragraph should establish notability and be as general as possible so this would come as overdetailed there, as well as being a duplication as this is mentioned in the lede's fourth paragraph in detail. I very much appreciate the effort by @Unbandito: to find a middle ground, but compromises should be based on RS, and RS overwhelmingly agree that the Israel-Hamas war specifically is simply chiefly taking place in Gaza. I have reverted until we can further discuss this and form a consensus. Makeandtoss (talk) 09:38, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

I think this is a good start. The wording should be based on the weight in RS that describe the conflict in its entirety, but finding such sources is not easy since the war is still going on.

One thing I'll change is "Gaza Envelope and southern Israel" -> "southern Israel". Gaza envelope is a part of southern Israel so logically "and" makes less sense and we don't need this level of detail in the lede. Alaexis_¿question? 09:40, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

The "Continued operations throughout Gaza (June 2024 – present)" section needs to be rewritten

This article is not the timeline or a daily update page. That is instead mainly Timeline of the Israel–Hamas war (13 July 2024 – present) for this section. I'm highlighting this because the title of the section indicates there is likely no over-arching summary that can be created, but redundant or extraneous content (i.e. one-sentence updates for specific days) needs to be moved to the timeline and removed from this article. JohnAdams1800 (talk) 14:09, 9 August 2024 (UTC)

Why did the Israeli civilian death toll go down by one?

Just making sure it wasn't an error. NesserWiki (talk) 02:55, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

Move discussion

Looking at coverage about the war, it has been increasingly being referred to as the Israel-Gaza war, so it seems this is a good time to reevaluate the current name. Israel-Gaza war is now being used by The Guardian, Washington Post, BBC, Reuters, Vox, Al Jazeera, NPR, Doctors Without Borders, Committee to Protect Journalists, The National, The Conservation, CBS news, CNBC. Important to note that the Guardian, Washington Post, BBC, Al Jazeera, DWB, CPJ and The National; all very prominent RS; are using the Israel-Gaza war within their website's category, and not just as a single occurence. Makeandtoss (talk) 10:45, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

Strong Support. I think that this seems like a considerably more accurate title than what we currently use for this page, given that the Hamas fighters are only a very small part of the targets in this massacre. David A (talk) 10:53, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

Not a vote yet but a pre-vote discussion, but yes I agree with you. Makeandtoss (talk) 10:55, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

Okay. Noted. By the way, I slightly clarified my comment above. David A (talk) 10:58, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

I did think that it should be called Gaza war but we should probably give up on that idea as Israel Gaza seems to have more traction. On first principles, I just cannot see how this war can be described as a war on Hamas, I don't actually care what RS are calling it, or I do but not that much. The facts speak for themselves, a scholarly consensus on a Gaza genocide and the literal leveling of the Gaza infrastructure, many other things, all point to this as a war on/with Gaza and it's inhabitants (+ UNRWA on the side). The idea that this "started" with the Hamas attack is also wrong, none of this happened in a vacuum. Selfstudier (talk) 11:16, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

I have felt it’s too obscure, but would “third Gaza war” be a good option? The Great Mule of Eupatoria (talk) 11:36, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

Unfortunately neither third Gaza war nor Gaza war are supported by RS at this moment, so I think our strongest arguments that would make for a successful move is as demonstrated by the above cited RS: Israel-Gaza war. But I agree that it implies a false equivalency, but it's the best option we have - so far. Makeandtoss (talk) 11:47, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

"Gaslighting," perhaps, captures what is being done. Were he alive, George Orwell would have had a lot of essays to write.

Israel-Gaza war would be a massive improvement over Israel-Hamas war. Gaza should be in the title because the war is about Gaza, its people, and its destruction. To deny this is to deny reality. I don't know what more to say because it is obvious and the simplest description of the facts. GeoffreyA (talk) 17:36, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

Why aren't the Israeli civilian accidentally killed by the IDF and the 2 settlers killed included I'm the civilian death toll?

The person who was accidentally killed by security forces in November 2023 Jerusalem Shooting is included in the civilian death toll. NesserWiki (talk) 20:56, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

Also,settlers killed in the conflict have been marked as civilian deaths on here before. NesserWiki (talk) 20:57, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

I meant to include a space after the comma, sorry. NesserWiki (talk) 20:59, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

I meant to say "in the civilian death toll" not "I'm civilian death toll", sorry. NesserWiki (talk) 20:58, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

The November 2023 shooting is what I meant to say. Sorry for all the typos. NesserWiki (talk) 20:59, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

Indirect deaths

Forgive my ignorance if this has already been discussed. A letter was published in The Lancet a month ago which estimated that 186,000 Gazans could have died in this conflict (the lead author was quoted clarifying that this is a very conservative estimate). The estimate includes indirect deaths, including from lack of health care, food and water.

Is this worth a mention? I suppose the question is whether these are attributable to the war. Even if these deaths are not directly due to violence, you could argue they are a result of war through loss of functioning hospitals, food supply chains, international aid or other reasons.

The Lancet letter: [36]

Snopes: [37] 20WattSphere (talk) 10:37, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

It was discussed recently, and there was disagreement. For now, it's best to stick with the numbers that we've got. GeoffreyA (talk) 10:45, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

It was already in the article and was removed. It should definitely be in the article in the former concise phrasing that "indirect deaths are likely to be magnitudes higher." Makeandtoss (talk) 11:28, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

The Lancet piece is still cited in the infobox with the estimate of 186,000+. However, the infobox incorrectly reports that the Lancet letter estimated 186,000+ indirect deaths. Their estimate is 186,000+ total deaths after including indirect deaths at a 4:1 ratio. That number comprises 37,396 direct deaths + 37,396 x 4 indirect deaths or 37,396 direct + 149,584 indirect equalling 186,980 total dead. It should not say "likely to be magnitudes higher" because that's just wrong. A magnitude higher is 10x, two magnitudes is 100x, three magnitudes is 1000x. Magnitudes are logarithmic. "Magnitudes higher" – plural – implies a minimum of 3.74 million+ deaths. Mr rnddude (talk) 12:57, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

Then multiple times higher. Makeandtoss (talk) 13:08, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

Either 'multiple' or 'four-fold' to comport / accord with the Lancet appear fine to me. Mr rnddude (talk) 13:20, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

It is worthy to note that this the lancet paper received 8 academic citations since the time it was published just a month ago, so it is definitely credible and worthy of mentioning in the article imo Stephan rostie (talk) 14:47, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

I'm unsure how to handle the infobox side of this matter. There are several options that come to mind, so I'll put them forward and allow other editors to comment on them. The infobox improperly reports the 186,000 figure as being indirect deaths, when it is the combined direct and indirect deaths. The possibilities all citable to the Lancet article are:

Option A1: Indirect deaths likely to be multiple times higher

Option A2: Indirect deaths likely to be three to fifteen times higher

Option B: 149,584+ indirect deaths

Option C: 186,000+ dead including from indirect causes

Any of these options can have their wording altered as needed, these are just generalizations of available approaches. Option B invokes WP:CALC using the Lancet's precise figure for direct deaths. Mr rnddude (talk) 16:16, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

Option A1 seems to be the best option, until the war ends and body collecting and counting goes on to determine the true death toll The Great Mule of Eupatoria (talk) 04:48, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

Infobox content should be as inarguably factual as possible so I agree with A1 as well. Selfstudier (talk) 11:12, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

Whatever is put there, it should be written to avoid the common misconception that can be seen in the first post of this section: "186,000 Gazans could have died". That's wrong; it isn't an estimate of people having died, but an estimate of people who will die in the future due to indirect effects of the war. The Lancet letter is very clear on that but I see the erroneous interpretation quite often. Zero^talk 15:31, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

It arises from reading the paragraph where the figure is presented in isolation without the context of the preceding paragraph where the meaning of the figure is explained in detail. Even having read it when it was released and knowing that at the time, I'd presently neglected it as well. This is a rather difficult letter to introduce properly without including inadvertent errors. I'm thinking A1 has the fewest potential issues, as its core premise holds true irrespective of the moment of the cessation of conflict: the indirect death toll being multiple times larger than the direct death toll. The IB aside, we now have the problem in the article prose that it states that the death toll in Gaza could already surpass 186,000. This indicates a current death toll of 186,000 rather than a future one. I considered altering 'already' to 'eventually' but that too could cause confusion. The conflict, being that it is on-going, necessarily, could 'eventually' surpass any figure death toll in the future (both directly and indirectly). I don't know how to rectify that sentence at present.

I should, while I am available, note that an estimate of people who will die in the future due to indirect effects of the war isn't strictly correct either. It's an estimate of the final death toll once all present indirect and future indirect deaths have occurred and includes all present direct deaths up until July 5th, 2024, the day the letter was published. Mr rnddude (talk) 16:44, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

I can't see the letter before a correction was made on July 10, but the present version does not say "death toll in Gaza could already surpass 186,000". The only place where that figure appears is "..it is not implausible to estimate that up to 186,000 or even more deaths could be attributable to the current conflict in Gaza." If one only reads that sentence it would be easy to mistake it for deaths up to that point, but in the context established by the previous paragraph it means both past (agreed on that) and future deaths. Zero^talk 04:22, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

You may have misunderstood me. Our article – the Wikipedia article – presents that the death toll in Gaza could already surpass 186,000 citing the Lancet letter. The letter does not say that. See the last paragraph of the humanitarian crisis section. I'm saying that needs to be fixed, but I'm not sure how to re-write that sentence. I thought about replacing 'already' with 'eventually', but that won't work for the aforementioned reason. Mr rnddude (talk) 04:35, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

Yes, I misunderstood you. I changed that sentence. Zero^talk 07:53, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

A1 to avoid false precision. Levivich (talk) 16:47, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

Option A1 seems like a good idea.

Also, does anyone know how missing people are counted? This NYT article earlier in the year stated that "it is unclear how much the estimate of those unaccounted for is already reflected in the official death toll." Back then the official toll was 31,000, and 7,000 were missing.

[38]

More recently, when the official death toll was 35,000, it included 25,000 identified individuals and 10,000 unidentified bodies. So I'm very unclear on how missing people are considered here. [39] 20WattSphere (talk) 23:08, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

While I would like to avoid using the article at all, as I have stated in previous discussions on other pages, the fact that multiple RS have made stories about it means it has spread greatly and so is part of the discussion. This being the case, if we are to reference in numbers, where it's not directly quoting with attribution and context, then Option A1 should be used. -- Cdjp1 (talk) 15:06, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

I didn't initially oppose including this, but after observing

• The confusion about what the authors meant, like whether 186k includes past + future deaths, etc.
• The messy attempted clarifications, like one author's characterization of the 186k figure as "purely illustrative" (in a deleted tweet)
• The critical analysis by Michael Spagat, which calls the estimate "implausible"

I think it's best to wait for a more clear, well-researched and broadly accepted estimate, rather than including this one. If we do include it, we need to be very careful about how we frame it. — xDanielx ^T/_C\^R 17:56, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

I see nothing to convince me since last time this was raised that it is a reasonable thing to add to this article. This article should stay reasonably close to the facts rather than even scientific speculation. I am quite happy for it to be used in the casualties article but not in this one. NadVolum (talk) 23:17, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

This is a reliable source, and the fact that it confuses some people is not a reason to avoid it. It is quite clear if read carefully. However, the numbers which are not claimed to be more than very rough estimates don't need to be quoted and so option A1 is fine. Zero^talk 04:22, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

OptionA. Given the vast documentation of dire conditions in Gaza since October 23, and the predictable epidemiological consequences of both war and the total breakdown of basic sanitary infrastructure, mentioning the forecast in these general terms is the correct option to choose.Nishidani (talk) 12:59, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

Option A. Also note that while the Palestinian sources (PMO, MoH) seem to focus on violent deaths, Israel has also employed as warfare – with ample evidence – starvation, destruction of healthcare services, and multiple forced relocations that normally kill those most frail. Their respective victim counts should normally be included in the totals. much like we have included all the starvation deaths in Holodomor. — kashmīrī ^TALK 19:50, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

I have implemented option A1, given that this is the most widely supported format in this discussion. There are a few editors who have indicated that they'd prefer wholesale exclusion, basically an Option D, which may be discussed further. Mr rnddude (talk) 18:59, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

Dubious

I have added the dubious tag to the recently-added "and Israel" part of the opening sentence, which misleadingly implies that the Gaza War specifically is also taking place in Israel, contrary to the majority of RS which were provided in the discussion above Talk:Israel-Hamas war#Opening sentence. Please do not remove this tag without first demonstrating verifiability per WP:BURDEN and consensus per WP:ONUS. Makeandtoss (talk) 10:50, 9 August 2024 (UTC)

The war unmistakably takes place in part in Israel. The October 7th attack was very obviously in Israel and rockets launched by Hamas from Gaza as well as Hezbollah in the north hit Israel, as did Houthi and Iranian missiles at various times (and possibly Iranian missiles again in the near future). RM (Be my friend) 11:05, 9 August 2024 (UTC)

This is not the article about the 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel, nor of the Israel-Hezbollah conflict (2023-present) oder Houthi attacks oder 2024 Iran–Israel conflict; which are all separate articles and the last three are distinct conflicts of their own. The scope of this article is clear in the title: the Israel-Hamas war; and Hamas is overwhelmingly based in Gaza, and so the war is chiefly taking place there. This is not my words, this is the words of RS as was demonstrated in the above discussion, including the words of the Israeli government itself: CNN: "War in Gaza could last another seven months, Israel warns." Relating to Hamas specifically; Israel is indeed at war, but it is not in war; it is waging a war on Gaza.Makeandtoss (talk) 11:13, 9 August 2024 (UTC)

@Makeandtoss The war is taking place in Israel. This is not dubious; Hamas has launched rockets into Israel proper, by definition that means it is also taking place in Israel no? Could you please find an RS specifically supporting your position that the war is not taking place in Israel? I don't support this tag at this time. Chuckstablers (talk) 15:50, 9 August 2024 (UTC)

I've removed the tag after reviewing the reliable sources we have in the article. I've listed my reasons for doing so below per WP:DISPUTED

1.) Hezbollah is a party to the conflict per the infobox and they have continued to launch attacks into Israel proper. Lebanon has been identified as a theater of the war in the infobox, so we have attacks from one belligerent/ally of Hamas into Israel proper. Just 4 days ago we have this RS reporting on Hezbollah launching a drone attack into Northern Israel. This clearly identifies Israel as a location where the war is occurring.

2.) The war began with an attack into internationally recognized Israeli territory by Hamas and their allies.

3.) Hamas regularly launches rocket attacks into Israel. This has been widely reported on by reliable sources; I've found 2 in the article reporting on this within 30 seconds of searching.

4.) Per this source 5 months after October 7th over 135,000 Israeli citizens remained displaced from their homes in Israel due to the war. I'm not sure how you can argue that the war isn't taking place in Israel when multiple RS's have reported that over 100k Israeli civilians (who live in Israel) were internally displaced due to the war.

5.) Here's another source, Reuters this time, reporting on "Palestinian militants fire rockets into Israel, tanks advance into Gaza". It's obvious to me (and I hope to others) that if Hamas is firing rockets into Israel then it's fine to say that the war is taking place in Israel.

Per WP:DISPUTED the disputed content can be supported by reliable sources, is unbiased (it states the fact that the war has been fought on Israeli territory) and doesn't contain original research (again, the RS's directly report on acts of war on Israeli territory by the other side), so the tag can be removed.

In addition none of the common reasons for adding the tag per WP:DISPUTED have been met; it doesn't include implausable information (plenty of sources saying it), it's not hard to verify (plenty of recent sources on strikes by Hamas and their allies against Israel in Israeli territory), it's not highly detailed information subject to frequent changes, it's not referencing outdated sources (see Reuters from 4 days ago that I linked), it isn't ambiguously worded, and there's no RS's supporting divergent claims (no RS's claiming that the war actually hasn't taken place and isn't taking place in Israeli territory).

This also conflicts with the rest of the article. The infobox clearly identifies Israel as a theater of the war; "Location: Gaza Strip and Israel" for good reason (because the war is taking place in Israel and Gaza). Chuckstablers (talk) 16:31, 9 August 2024 (UTC)

So, would you say, from a maths point of view, which tends to clear the fog of language, that the war is—temporally, spatially, and destruction-wise—the same in Israel as in Gaza? That is, is the degree the same? If the degree is not the same, is that supported by the reading "taking place in Gaza and Israel," or does the latter grossly misrepresent reality? GeoffreyA (talk) 19:30, 9 August 2024 (UTC)

No, the degree is not the same, but the current wording says nothing about the degree. It just says that it happened both in the Gaza Strip and in Israel which is an undeniable fact. The sources that describe the war in its entirety cover the events in Israel at length, see the discussion in Talk:Israel–Hamas_war#Opening_sentence. Alaexis_¿question? 19:50, 9 August 2024 (UTC)

The events in Israel were covered at length; but what is happening now, as documented in the Events section, is mainly in Gaza and has been all these months. When one opens news covering this, it is largely, and daily, the WW2-like imagery from Gaza. To a lesser extent, the incidents are elsewhere. Understandably, the opening sentence is compressed, but there is a loss of information as it stands. The older reading was an accurate summing up. If Israel must be included, then so must the other places where confrontations have taken place, such as the Israel-Lebanon border and the West Bank, for it to stay accurate.

In short, the present version is misleading, even if facts can be cherry picked to support it. GeoffreyA (talk) 08:03, 10 August 2024 (UTC)

@Chuckstablers:

1- The infobox lists Hezbollah under "other theaters" meaning other conflicts. WP is not a source anyway, and the Israel-Hamas war template should remove any references to other wars or conflicts. The drone attack is related to the Israel-Hezbollah war, and not to the Israel-Hamas war.

2- The Israel-Hamas war war began so indeed with a Hamas attack; that was >300 days ago. Since then, it has been >300 days of Israeli invasion of Gaza, >300 days of Israel-Hamas fighting in Gaza, >300 days of Israeli wiping Gaza off the map. One day of war is undue.

3- A dozen rockets once a month does not make the war chiefly taking place in Israel.

4- This is original research and WP:Synth.

5- Also original research and synth.

Do you have one single RS explicitly stating that the Israel-Hamas war is taking place in Israel? So far we have provided here at least five RS saying that it is taking place in Gaza, including one that is cited to the Israeli government itself. Makeandtoss (talk) 19:09, 10 August 2024 (UTC)

I also provided multiple sources which said in 2024 that the war takes place in Gaza and Israel. I'm copying the list below for the convenience of other editors. Btw no one claimed that the war takes place "chiefly in Israel", this is a red herring.

• Reuters: Six months of war in Israel and Gaza In pictures: 100 days of war in Israel and Gaza
• The Atlantic: War in Israel
• BBC: One hundred days of the war in Gaza and Israel
• Brookings Institution: War in Israel and Gaza
• Committee to Protect Journalists: As we continue to monitor the war in Israel/Gaza. Alaexis_¿question? 19:51, 10 August 2024 (UTC)

They are titles. I guess historians of WW2 will now rewrite the record under the rubric 'The war in England and the Continent' because England was bombed and rocketed from there. There was no war in England, just as there has been, for 9 months, no war in Israel. A prewar situation exists between Israel and Lebanon, but so far neither side has invaded the other, as both Hamas and Israel did. Nishidani (talk) 20:18, 10 August 2024 (UTC)

So you are citing a Reuters pictures website, an Atlantic "category", a BBC "episode" dating to 6 months ago, a Brookings institute category that includes an article about Hezbollah, and a CPJ website which says "Israel-Gaza War" not "war in Israel"? Looking at the provided sources, clearly "war in Israel" is not supported by the overwhelming majority of RS. Makeandtoss (talk) 20:22, 10 August 2024 (UTC)

If a source says "war in Gaza" it doesn't mean that there was no war in Israel. As I've said earlier, rather than counting how many times a given wording appears in newspaper articles, we need to see how this conflict is described in sources which give an overview of the whole conflict.

• Britannica Israel-Hamas-War
• CNN map-israel-hamas-war,
• BBC What is Hamas and why is it fighting with Israel in Gaza?

In all of these cases the events in Israel occupy much more than 1/300 of the text. Alaexis_¿question? 20:33, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

"In all of these cases the events in Israel occupy much more than 1/300 of the text." This is a synth and original research conclusion. Now that we have established that RS do not explicitly describe the war that wiped Gaza off the map as being in Israel. So this is neither verifiable nor does it have consensus, why is it still in the lede? Makeandtoss (talk) 10:18, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

@Alaexis: Pinging in case you have missed it. Makeandtoss (talk) 09:15, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

Sorry, I missed it indeed. I'm still not sure I understand your point. I've provided sources that say that the war takes place in Israel. I've also provided sources that describe the war in its entirety and give substantial weight to the events in Israel.

No one claims that the extent of destruction is the same and no reader would think this way considering the rest of the lede's contents. Alaexis_¿question? 12:03, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

@Alaexis: The sources do not explicitly say so; but is a personal conclusion that it does since "the events in Israel occupy much more than 1/300 of the text." Makeandtoss (talk) 12:10, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

@Alaexis: Waiting for your RFC so you can get consensus for your contested insertion. Makeandtoss (talk) 14:52, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

What are the sources for "chiefly in Gaza"? I hope you will use the same standard of evidence you're applying to the sources I've brought up. Alaexis_¿question? 20:09, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

@Alaexis: Five high quality RS were provided in my 08:56, 6 August 2024 (UTC) comment saying that war is exclusively taking place only in Gaza, including one in the words of the Israeli government. "chiefly in Gaza" is my compromise to reach a middle ground solution as it implicitly implies that war is also taking place in Israel but to a lesser degree. Which of the two are you supporting? Makeandtoss (talk) 11:22, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

No, your sources only say that a war is going on in Gaza which no one disputes. E.g. your sources #4 says Gaza could see another 7 months of war, Israel says. This statement says nothing about the significance of the events that took place within the Israeli territory on October 7-9 and later (rockets and shooting attacks). Alaexis_¿question? 22:06, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

@Alaexis: This is a misrepresentation of RS; for example, the AP source I provided explicitly separates the attack on 7 October 2023 from the war that succeeded it in Gaza. AP: the Oct. 7 attack on Israel that sparked the war in Gaza. Makeandtoss (talk) 07:06, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

Our article covers both, so it's irrelevant. Alaexis_¿question? 20:55, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

The bodies of six hostages have been recovered.

Source:https://x.com/spectatorindex/status/1825803252925169745?t=CV56UKp80amdygsoKY530Q&s=19 NesserWiki (talk) 08:01, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

Reputable media outlets have reported on it: https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-08-20/ty-article-live/aoc-at-dnc-kamala-harris-is-working-tirelessly-to-secure-gaza-cease-fire-hostage-release/00000191-6d8d-d5f6-abf9-ef8d5d8b0000 NesserWiki (talk) 08:03, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

Ben-Gvir also tweeted about it: https://x.com/itamarbengvir/status/1825792893648343517?t=1HW1fzPquTYiro-3zUjt_w&s=19 NesserWiki (talk) 08:04, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

I updated it. If any improvement is necessary, please improve it without double counting. Pachu Kannan (talk) 08:47, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

IDF

@Pachu Kannan: I think we should avoid using the IDF as a source here as much as possible; it is a demonstrably unreliable, non-independent and primary source. Makeandtoss (talk) 11:57, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

Should we employ the same standard with Hamas? NesserWiki (talk) 22:45, 2 August 2024 (UTC)

For the record, I'm against this on the basis that all militaries and paramilitaries have a track record of not telling the truth, and we still use their reports as sources. The IDF is not particularly special in this regard. NesserWiki (talk) 22:48, 2 August 2024 (UTC)

Also for the record, anything any military or paramilitary says should be taken with a grain of salt. I'm just saying the IDF's claims should he held to the same standard and every other military/paramilitary's claims, no lower, no higher. NesserWiki (talk) 22:50, 2 August 2024 (UTC)

hamas.com is not used in the article. Makeandtoss (talk) 07:37, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

Hamas’s health ministry and media office is widely used. BilledMammal (talk) 08:30, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

Yes, so is the IDF, only when the information is provided from a secondary reliable source that establishes context and challenges propaganda; not straight from their websites. Makeandtoss (talk) 08:50, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

"Hamas health ministry" lol. Is that supposed to be an improvement over Hamas run? It's called the Gaza Health Ministry, has a wikilink and is considered a reliable source, unlike the IDF which is about as reliable as Hamas, in fact those two are peas in a pod and the only question is which member of either of them gets arrested for war crimes first. Selfstudier (talk) 10:14, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

Hamas’s health ministry. Like Israel’s health ministry, making it clear that it belongs to one of the belligerents. BilledMammal (talk) 10:20, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

I can repeat myself just as well, Gaza Health Ministry. Selfstudier (talk) 10:24, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

I’ve edited my comment to make it clearer. BilledMammal (talk) 10:27, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

Great, now just fix the POV and we're good to go. Selfstudier (talk) 10:34, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

Saying "Gaza Health Ministry" makes it obvious that it is run by the government of Gaza, and the government of Gaza is obviously Hamas. NesserWiki (talk) 00:26, 4 August 2024 (UTC)

Whenever someone says "Hamas Health Ministry" or "Hamas-run Health Ministry", it's usually a way of trying to dismiss the death toll in Gaza. NesserWiki (talk) 00:27, 4 August 2024 (UTC)

Hamas has a press organization, the Government Media Office, which is distinct from the Health Ministry. Members of the civil government in Gaza, even if they are members of Hamas (not all of them are!), are speaking in their capacity as civil government officials, not as members of a political party/armed organization. It's a subtle but significant difference. Unbandito (talk) 12:33, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

Who says the Hamas Health Ministry is a reliable source? PaPiker (talk) 17:39, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia does, in several discussions already, because RS say it's reliable. Look for the discussions yourself. And fyi, its Gaza Health Ministry so take your POV elsewhere. Selfstudier (talk) 17:58, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

The UN considers the data reliable, based on its past experience working with the government in Gaza in previous conflicts. I would guess that's why the it's reliable. 20WattSphere (talk) 23:14, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

It's not entirely clear what you suggest. Plenty of RS use the information provided by IDF (e.g., "According to IDF Muhammed Deif was killed"). We should follow the RS and use it as any other primary source based on our policies and the use by other RS. Alaexis_¿question? 19:28, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

Agree we should agree with WP:RS. My question would be when and where information can be stated without qualification, vs attributing it in text to IDF. It does seem the IDF has now made a number of very significant errors in public statements, such as the Israeli allegations against UNRWA. Information from the IDF could simply be qualified with "according to the IDF, ...", or "the IDF stated..." 20WattSphere (talk) 23:23, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

Recentism in the most recent events section?

There has been a bit of a content dispute over the Continued operations throughout Gaza section, which catalogs the most recent events in the war. In general, @Pachu Kannan has added the most content to this section (I have also contributed a significant amount) and @JohnAdams1800 has called the section too detailed, and said it suffers from recentism. I thought it would be a good idea to discuss the section and what does or doesn't belong in it to cut down to reverts, edits to the wrong pages, etc.

I agree that the section has become too detailed. However, I don't think everything JohnAdams is removing should be relegated to the timeline. I'm hoping we can all agree on some criteria for including events in the main article.

Personally, I agree with JohnAdams that daily updates do not belong in this article. Pachu Kannan, I think you should add those sorts of edits directly to the timeline. However, I do think that notable battles and military maneuvers, massacres of maybe more than 10 people that have received significant media coverage, events where a notable individual such as a journalist, local civilian leader, aid worker, etc is killed, or where a school, hospital or facility usually outside the bounds of war is attacked, should be included in this article. The main article receives many thousands more pageviews than this timeline article. Moving these events to the timeline will impact the reader's perception of the war, and of its relative intensity over time, and make this article less true to events on the ground.

When it comes to the events in this section, I think we also want to keep as many blue links in the article as possible, to respect the work of editors writing detailed accounts of these specific battles and attacks and to promote Wikipedia's unique ability to organize information as a live, interlinked encyclopedia.

So, here is an example of a move I agree with: 1 and one that I don't: 2

To address the issue of recentism, I think it's worth being patient with this section because the events are still fresh and we are waiting for better aggregate information and a historical view on them to form. You can already see this starting to happen with the UN's latest report on school attacks in the last two months. As we get more information like this over the next several months, we can make the section sound like less of a daily press release. In the meantime, people are coming to this article looking for up to date information on the war, so we should be extra careful about events in maybe the last two weeks or so.

It may also be the case that the better way to solve recentism and the the relative size of this section is to go back into previous sections and pick out a few more important details from their child articles, now that we have the historical perspective to do so. In the sections between the November ceasefire and the Rafah offensive, we were able to make things a little more readable by adding subheadings, per the suggestion of @CommunityNotesContributor. I think that would be more challenging here because it is harder to differentiate things at this stage of the war, but it's worth keeping an eye on this idea as things develop. It may become a lot easier to contextualize this section after we find out what comes next.

Interested to hear everyone's thoughts. Unbandito (talk) 13:17, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

My thoughts:

Support including sentences like "By August 2024, almost 84% of Gaza was under evacuation orders from Israel."

Oppose including sentences like "On 7 August, at least 10 including at least three members of a family were killed in an Israeli artillery shell strike in a tent camp in Abasan al-Kabira and in an Israeli strike against a tent in Bani Suheila for displaced Palestinians, both areas designated as a "safe zone" by Israeli forces."

As an example, the Russian invasion of Ukraine article doesn't include daily updates and events, but instead presents an over-arching narrative and important facts for specific sections of time. It also has its own timeline articles. JohnAdams1800 (talk) 13:25, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

This is generally the point and always been the issue. The other is that all other events sections are summaries of child articles, but it appears the current "Continued operations" section is not considered a summary of a child in the same way. Ideally we'd just assign the timelines of (7 May – 12 July 2024) and (13 July 2024 – present) as the main article(s) for the current events, if there is no other main article to consider here, and therefore summarise the section based on an actual the summary of these child articles (where applicable of course based on time-frame). At present none of it is a summary and therefore by default will always give undue weight to the events section, given the other events are summarised. It also appears to be highlights from the timeline, which to be clear is not a summary either, similar to how a lead section is not the highlights of the article, but instead a summary of it. There's only so many times I can say that we need to summarise before it eventually get's summarised, similar to nearly all other sections. I don't think there's otherwise any need to provide specific examples here, given the entire section is written per JohnAdams1800's example. CNC (talk) 14:18, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

Kommentar: I am also deeply worried about its extremely heavy load, although due to fears of 1RR I refrain from making wholesale reversals. I definitely support limiting mention of events to incidents of extraordinary weight. At this rate not every rocket launch or airstrike is notable in the main frame, especially if these projectiles repetitively land in an empty yard, and as much as editors describe this war in more loaded words, this article is not the tally for how many people get killed every day. I would like to notify everyone that similar instances have been happening in Israel–Hezbollah conflict (2023–present) involving some of the same editors here. Borgenland (talk) 13:58, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

I had also previously advised the editor in question on where to put such items instead. Borgenland (talk) 13:59, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

I think that some of my edits violate WP:RECENTISM and due weight. I think that this problem is more in some of my edits in Israel–Hezbollah conflict (2023–present). If anyone can help me by removing or rewriting those sentences which violate these policies, please do it. Pachu Kannan (talk) 14:24, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

Response I don't remember ever suggesting sub-headings, instead I only ever suggested summarising sections to their child articles. I would/do support more sub-headings if there are child articles to reference and summarise from though. CNC (talk) 14:29, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

Can anyone help me by summarising this section and two other sections in Israel–Hezbollah conflict (2023–present). Pachu Kannan (talk) 15:02, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

I can have have a go later at the continued operations section. I assume you mean July and August for the other article? The latter looks like the timeline just re-formatted into paragraphs. All of the "Further clashes" sub-sections need re-doing by looks of it, at least based on page size. Ideally it would just be one section summarising all of the months combined. 😬 CNC (talk) 15:15, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

I have removed some sentences added by me in this article per these policies. Pachu Kannan (talk) 15:25, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

Update Have done an example of a summary for June.[40] I fail to see why other months can't be summarised into single paragraphs also. Will give July and August a go unless there is strong opposition to such a proposal. CNC (talk) 15:49, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

I support your proposal and thank you for your summarising for June. Pachu Kannan (talk) 15:58, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

I think your June summary does a good job trimming the section without sacrificing substance. One thing I might have done differently would be to keep more of the sources in, so that more detail is available to those who seek it out. For example, I think it was a good idea to remove the controversy over whether or not an aid vehicle was used by Israel in its hostage rescue, but it might be a good idea to leave the sources in that discuss that. Unbandito (talk) 16:16, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, that was the intention to simply remove unnecessary detail and content. For citations, it's best to only leave citations for the content that remains, otherwise it'd effectively be a ref bomb (ie adding citations that aren't verifying the content in question). The way to do as suggested would be to summarise the "he said she said" controversy over the aid vehicle, with "and a disagreement over the rescue vehicle involved", and add the relevant citations to that. But personally with 274 dead, I think the type of vehicle they used to do this "the how part" is somewhat irrelevant to the summary. CNC (talk) 16:40, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

I have also removed some sentences added by me from Israel–Hezbollah conflict (2023–present). Pachu Kannan (talk) 16:50, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

Update #2 Have summarised July & August per support above. [41] Enough of this was either unnecessary detail, or specifying the number of women and children killed, as well as those injured. Without intending to sound insensitive here, these are none the less details of the timeline, and are undue as part of a summary of the timelines. Ideally readers would understand that with XXX dead, this included women, children, and injuries, but I digress. Ideally there would be a summary of number of casualties for these months, but ultimately this doesn't seem to exist. For a better summary, a note should be created to include the number of those killed per month/section, with women, children, elderly, and other injuries defined. I've otherwise removed the templates as I believe this has been resolved for now, as well as moved the note to the bottom of the section (where editors contribute new information) in the hope to quell unnecessary further content. CNC (talk) 23:18, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

Thank you. Pachu Kannan (talk) 01:19, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

August 21 edit requests at RFPP

I have declined a couple of edit requests at Wikipedia:Requests for page protection/Edit because they didn't cite sources and weren't specific enough; however, they do identify some actual inconsistencies that should be examined by the regulars here.

Quoting from RFPP in case the archive bot removes them too quickly, the inconsistencies identified are:

• "On 28 March, the IDF shot and killed two unarmed men in central Gaza, before burying them in sand with bulldozers.[397]" needs to be altered, the source gives two contradicting stories which CNN (the source) didn't clear up. In the article AJ argues without evidence the two videos they present are from the same people, the IDF tells those were two separate incidents. This has to be cleared up to remain factual.
• The casualty figures for Syria and Lebanon need updating as they are now out of date, the page states that 326 Hezbollah fighters have been killed in Lebanon and 60 in Syria for a total of 386 but Hezbollah itself has admitted that over 410 of its fighters have been killed, the IDF has also provided consistent on the number of Hezbollah fighters eliminated.

~Anachronist (talk) 18:27, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

Nuseirat rescue operation

There's a long pending merge discussion at Nuseirat rescue operation with no recent comments. We might want to close it. Pg 6475 ^TM 19:43, 25 August 2024 (UTC)

Hamas militants killed

How many Hamas militants were killed during the war? I didn't find any data in the article or in the infobox. -- Gabi S. (talk) 20:29, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

To my understanding, the short answer is that no one can reliably say right now. Unbandito (talk) 21:40, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

According to IDF, 17,000+ Hamas militants were killed per https://www.timesofisrael.com/idf-says-it-razed-over-50-tunnels-in-gaza-egypt-border-area-in-past-week/. It is mentioned in the infobox. There is no total data from Hamas, they only announce some deaths of their militants. Pachu Kannan (talk) 04:11, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

I see it only in the article notes, not in the infobox on the top right. -- Gabi S. (talk) 08:50, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

Their last update from April 2024 was less than 20% of their militants killed per https://apnews.com/article/israel-palestinians-hamas-war-casualties-toll-65e18f3362674245356c539e4bc0b67a. It is also mentioned in the infobox. Pachu Kannan (talk) 04:15, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

The numbers of Palestinians and Hamas militants supposedly killed is incredibly blurred. Doubt the actual number either way will ever be accurate. MaskedSinger (talk) 16:33, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

We should include the reported numbers with source attribution. I can't understand how such important data is still missing in the infobox. -- Gabi S. (talk) 08:00, 24 August 2024 (UTC)

I agree. We can use the ToI figure with attribution unless and until we have better sources. Alaexis_¿question? 18:59, 24 August 2024 (UTC)

It is easy to see the figure of 17,000 is complete rubbish but I've no objection to editors sticking it in with an attribution to the IDF. NadVolum (talk) 22:07, 24 August 2024 (UTC)

It should be stated that it is solely Israel’s claim, as well as the reasons that it should be doubted, for example the IDF listing single digit age children as “Hamas militants”

https://apnews.com/article/israel-hamas-mideast-latest-06-07-2024-cbc1aa84bc30b5f27dc1823155448f86 The Great Mule of Eupatoria (talk) 09:29, 27 August 2024 (UTC)