Talk:Israel–Hamas war

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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. [1] 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 ([2], [3]). 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. [4]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)

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)

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) or Houthi attacks or 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 "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)