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Talk:Israel–Hamas war/Archive 45

< Talk:Israel–Hamas war
Latest comment: 19 days ago by GeoffreyA in topic Recent lede changes
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Background to the Israel-Hamas war

Latest comment: 25 days ago47 comments11 people in discussion

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:
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 or 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

Latest comment: 24 days ago1 comment1 person in discussion

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

Individual attacks

Latest comment: 22 days ago11 comments4 people in discussion

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

Latest comment: 20 days ago3 comments3 people in discussion
  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)

  Done 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

Latest comment: 19 days ago5 comments4 people in discussion

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?

Latest comment: 19 days ago2 comments2 people in discussion

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

Latest comment: 19 days ago5 comments2 people in discussion

@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

Latest comment: 19 days ago25 comments5 people in discussion

@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)
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