Template talk:Israel–Hamas war casualties

unsourced claims

user:Shushugah, please explain why you add unsourced claims? TaBaZzz (talk) 15:36, 26 November 2023 (UTC)

@טבעת-זרם Immediately after the claim, was a source to France 24. I have replaced it with its current Reuter source because of updated number. Both sources refer to Israeli military and settler forces, why do you claim it is not sourced? ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 20:08, 27 November 2023 (UTC)

Should have mentioned casualties from both sides in the WB. Now it's there. TaBaZzz (talk) 20:49, 27 November 2023 (UTC)

References

Talk on this template

At Talk:Casualties_of_the_2023_Israel–Hamas_war#Extended-confirmed-protected_edit_request_on_11_December_2023 I propose putting this inline into articles as it is impeding reasonable editors doing their job. NadVolum (talk) 21:34, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

Casualties, not analysis

@BilledMammal The goal of this template is to summarize and transclude in many places, the number of casualties. It does not include the method/how people died, (whether Hamas rockets, JDAM missiles, friendly fire, or any other methods. To insist on introducing the loaded claim of 12% rockets misfiring is not only undue, but it's also introducing an entire new topic, without any context for the vast vast majority of Israeli and Palestinian deaths. Please do not reinsert the content without a consensus here, or in the main article discussion Talk:2023_Israel–Hamas_war#Rockets_falling_short ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 11:07, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

@Shushugah: That’s about the lede; I don’t believe any editor is disputing there that it belongs in the body.

If you’re unhappy with the number we can omit it, or use the "10% to 20%" range used by other sources.

As for the purpose of this template, that doesn’t align with how it is used; please remember WP:OWN. BilledMammal (talk) 12:15, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

This is not a lead, it is a template. It's usefulness is in giving the numbers killed in a central place that can be updated easily instead of a number of places. NadVolum (talk) 17:28, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

"2023 Israel–Hamas war/casualty" listed at Redirects for discussion

The redirect 2023 Israel–Hamas war/casualty has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2024 January 20 § 2023 Israel–Hamas war/casualty until a consensus is reached. InfiniteNexus (talk) 23:01, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

Inconsistent numbers

This template generates similar (but different) numbers than the {{Israel–Hamas war infobox}}. Is there a reason they're not precisely the same? -- Mikeblas (talk) 20:05, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

One is source methodology. I would even support having a third template that is transcluded between infobox and here, but that’s debatable if wise. Gaza Ministry of Health is one source for Gazan casualties. The EuroMed also counts people missing presumably dead under rubble.

The other 2 main reasons for inconsistency are difference in methodology (do Hamas militants killed on Israeli side count as casualties of Gaza or not?) and simply the times these numbers are updated. It changes everyday. Israeli casualties in other hand are stable. ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 20:22, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

That just means that different references were chosen for the same facts for the two templates. Why would that be? -- Mikeblas (talk) 19:36, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

You know how Wikipedia works. It’s a volunteer project and no one is tasked with updating both templates each day. And I mentioned the cases where it is not the same fact, whether it is counting different things or whether it is counting on different days. ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 10:59, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

Include Injured?

Should injured be included in the template? JDiala (talk) 12:31, 7 March 2024 (UTC)

West Bank

Article currently says 382 killed in West Bank but cites Al Jazeera 2 Jan giving 320.[1] However, OCHA is currently giving 382 so that figure is up to date, but presumably citation should change? And we need to give the date in the text. (A 24 March Guardian opinion piece gives "more than 400... according to the Palestinian health ministry",[2] but I don't think we can use that as not a news article.) BobFromBrockley (talk) 13:13, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

Accuracy of Gaza MoH numbers

I removed the statement "The accuracy of these figures, as well as the number of women and minors killed, is disputed." This is because this statement violates WP:FALSEBALANCE. While some sources do dispute the accuracy, most sources, and indeed the most reliable ones, attest to the accuracy of these numbers. Our most reliable sources are those published in peer-reviewed scientific publications (here are two[3][4]) and they find these figures to be reliable.VR _{(Please ping on reply)} 04:07, 8 May 2024 (UTC)

I removed more stuff disputing them from unreliable sources. Also the breakdown of deaths in th UN OCHR report now only includes casualties whose identities have been confirmed - basically those for whom the id number is known. I'm not sure why they do that, the reference that was there to fog of war said nothing about it. There's no good reason to think that is any sort of good indicator of anything - widows for instance are filing the ids of their husbands so as to get assistance. NadVolum (talk) 14:46, 13 May 2024 (UTC)

Indirect deaths

@GordonGlottal: following up about your revert, if we attributed the statement to the recent Lancet essay rather than Small Arms Survey, would that address your concern? Since the Lancet essay both mentions 3-15x and connects it the Gaza conflict.

I don't feel too strongly about the framing of this, mainly just want to get rid of the minimum average of five times language since it's a bit confusing and somewhat different from what the sources say. — xDanielx ^T/_C\^R 00:52, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

@XDanielx I tried some new language. I think the Lancet correspondents stray into opinion when they say that the 2008 global average can be directly applied to give a reasonable estimate on 2023-2024 Gaza without giving any explanation for this claim. A more serious analysis would look only at data that was directly relevant and give explicit criteria for inclusion in that subset, and also consider how to allow for 2008-2024 trends. Such a source will undoubtedly come to exist in the next few years. GordonGlottal (talk) 22:43, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

I'm going to remove it for the moment I think. I've read through the two reports of the Gaza Health Impact Projections Working Group (https://gaza-projections.org/) which has done serious research, and they don't seem to think the impact will approach the 2008 minimum average. Even their "epidemic" estimate (which hasn't occurred) shows disease/maternal health deaths at only 3x traumatic deaths. Although risk of famine persists, it is not occurring according to the IPC. GordonGlottal (talk) 16:44, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

Israeli military count?

Can someone explain what our sources are for the Israeli casualty count? I couldn't reconstruct "721" from the sources given and it hasn't been recently updated. The IDF count [5] is 734, but they don't break it down into services the way we do. GordonGlottal (talk) 22:46, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

Contradiction about what's included in death toll

The article first tells us that 'The casualty total includes all reported deaths', and then that 'The GHM count does not include those who have died from "preventable disease, malnutrition and other consequences of the war".' I find the first claim hard to believe, but the second claim isn't well-sourced either. I don't think the article should blatantly contradict itself like this. We should use language that makes the two claims compatible, or recognizes each claim without declaring them the truth. But I find the situation confusing, and I'm not sure what to do. Do we have better sources, or better interpretations? Ornilnas (talk) 04:08, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

Casualties there means trauma deaths, a bit less than that have died due to other reasons - which is more than 6 times the death rate before the war. So overall it is closer to 100,000. There is no contradiction unless you think casualties could reasonably include people dying of old age or a disease! What exactly is it you find hard to believe? NadVolum (talk) 12:04, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

It's not the word "casualty" that is the problem, it's the wording "all reported deaths". If the casualty total is only total trauma deaths, it should say so. Ornilnas (talk) 00:15, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

Oh I see the problem. The recorded deaths is higher than the number who have been identified and people might assume the difference is natural deaths rather than casualties who haven't been identified. I think I'll just add 'number of casualties' after total and that should fix that. NadVolum (talk) 09:27, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

It took a bit more rephrasing - and I can easily imagine someone will come along with some different problem about it! NadVolum (talk) 10:02, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

I was going to suggest The recorded casualty total (c. 41,000) includes all reported deaths, while a subset with demographic breakdown is available only for those with individually associated identities but I like your phrasing and I tweaked it to emphasize that demographic breakdown is a strict subset of the former.

This addressed two areas for ambiguity, once hinges on the word "reported" as opposed to estimates in Lancet, and the other is cause of death. Even a death is recorded, in hospital say due to lack of medical-care, that's excluded from the casualties count. Even if we're more precise now, there's room for confusion, so open for more ideas. ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 10:08, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

There was a while there where it may not have been a strict subset, where an identified casualty might not be in the total, but I believe their tightened up process ensures that's okay now. However I think it is now possible for them to have the opposite problem where a casualty is included in the total twice but that should be quite rare. I'm pretty certain they'd include a person who was badly injured by a bomb and then died in hospital even though it might have been possible to save them if the medical care hadn't been destroyed. NadVolum (talk) 10:51, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

The new wording "all recorded deaths directly due to the war" makes much more sense and is compatible with the rest of the text. However, do we have a source for this claim? The current source at the end of the sentence is a Jerusalem Post article which I don't think says anything of the sort. Ornilnas (talk) 02:47, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

The article from The Guardian covers this: The official death toll provided by health authorities does not tell the full story of Palestinian losses, because it excludes people buried under the rubble of collapsed buildings, and those not directly killed by bombs or bullets. I moved it to the end of the sentence so it is clear that the assertion comes from there. - Ïvana (talk) 05:03, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, that's better. Though I will still note that The Guardian does not explain where it has this information from. After some digging, it seems like the GHM releases these death tolls as lists of names in a PDF file shared on their WhatsApp group. Perhaps they also mention the methodology in the same group chat, but I've yet to see any direct quotes. Ornilnas (talk) 01:30, 9 October 2024 (UTC)