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This is an archive of past discussions about Israel–Hamas war. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

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 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)

“ 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 ; 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 Misplaced Pages: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: 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: 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

This edit request to Israel–Hamas war has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

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

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. . 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 /_C\ 21:37, 24 July 2024 (UTC)