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Attribution of sexual violence in the lede

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This edit misleads the reader into thinking that the claims of sexual violence come only from the Israeli side, specifically the Israeli police. This is definitely not the case, the latest UN report says that There are reasonable grounds to believe that conflict-related sexual violence — including rape and gang-rape — occurred across multiple locations of Israel and the Gaza periphery during the attacks on 7 October 2023 and that The team also found convincing information that sexual violence was committed against hostages, and has reasonable grounds to believe that such violence may still be ongoing against those in captivity. While there are reasonable grounds to believe that conflict-related sexual violence occurred in the Nova music festival site, Route 232, and kibbutz Re’im. The report doesn't mention the Israeli police at all.

The CNN article based on the report also says The commission said it had “documented evidence of sexual violence” carried out by Palestinian armed groups in several locations in southern Israel on October 7..

We should use these reports based on an independent investigation in the lede, rather than claims made by the Israeli police in the aftermath of the October 7 attack. Alaexis¿question? 09:25, 9 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Alaexis I mean, if you want to have this discussion, this edit misleads the reader into thinking that the claims of sexual violence have no particular source at all. I've added the CNN ref back to the article here, while not omitting the RS-backed information about the Israeli police. Smallangryplanet (talk) 09:49, 9 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for adding it. There is an issue with the text you've added though.
This article is about the 7 October attack. There are no claims in the UN report or the CNN article that there was sexual violence against Palestinians during this attack. It happened later and is mentioned in many other articles but it clearly doesn't belong here. Alaexis¿question? 09:59, 9 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Sure, but the CNN article is describing the UN report, which was written after 7 October. Nothing we can do about that. Smallangryplanet (talk) 10:21, 9 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The article says clearly The commission said it had “documented evidence of sexual violence” carried out by Palestinian armed groups in several locations in southern Israel on October 7. The actions by Israel, described in the Sexual violence and inflammatory rhetoric paragraph did not happen during the initial attack but rather after the invasion of Gaza. Alaexis¿question? 14:41, 9 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Sure, but the next sentence is The commission had also reviewed rape testimonies collected by journalists and Israeli police but said it was unable to independently verify these due to lack of access to the victims or crime sites, and because Israel obstructed its investigations. I don't mind adding that (it's important information!) but it seems like a lot to introduce in the lead. Smallangryplanet (talk) 16:00, 9 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That's exactly the reason why I made this edit leaving only the information supported by independent sources in the lede. Alaexis¿question? 21:51, 9 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think that it's better to keep facts which are known with higher certainty in the lede. Things that could not be independently verified should be in the body of the article, with proper attribution.
Some claims made in the aftermath of the attack may not have lasting significance and we can remove them if we have more reliable data.
We should summarise the key points of the report related to the October 7 attack in the lede and we can discuss the details in the body of the article. Alaexis¿question? 22:01, 9 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with Alaexis. Andre🚐 22:05, 9 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Alaexis @AndreJustAndre okay, I've updated the lead to only refer to the parts of the report that discuss October 7. Smallangryplanet (talk) 09:29, 10 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I've changed the wording a bit. The part about the inability to independently verify the allegations of rape refers to item 26 of the original report. The sentence about sexual violence is based on item 25 of the report in which they describe how they obtained and verified the evidence. As I said earlier, I think that we should only mention verified findings in the lede. Alaexis¿question? 21:29, 10 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
In that case we should remove any reference to this story at all, since the finding is not verified. (Which your edit implied was the case.) Instead, the commission writes However, the Commission documented cases indicative of sexual violence perpetrated against women and men..., but stops short of ever saying they were confirmed. My edit and description was accurate, matching both the body of this article and the text of the article specifically dedicated to the topic in question. Smallangryplanet (talk) 21:39, 10 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with @Smallangryplanet per the edit summary, and don't think it will be helpful to add more information to the lede on this to cover all the nuances that are already on the main page and in the body. Raskolnikov.Rev (talk) 21:44, 10 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Looks like @Raskolnikov.Rev got to the revert first and for largely the same reasons. I'll also add that section 25 does say that one thing was verified - namely verified digital evidence concerning the restraining of women - but does not extend the same phrasing to the other pieces of evidence it describes. Smallangryplanet (talk) 21:46, 10 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I have removed the reference to the Israeli police from the lead. Hopefully we can consider this matter closed? @Alaexis Smallangryplanet (talk) 22:15, 13 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Sexual violence

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This is what the report says (item 25)

The CNN summarised it as The commission said it had “documented evidence of sexual violence” carried out by Palestinian armed groups in several locations in southern Israel on October 7 which is a good summary. We should use a similar wording in the lede. Alaexis¿question? 21:48, 10 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Raskolnikov.Rev, this doesn't resolve the issue. If we're mentioning the claims made by the Israeli police, we should definitely mention the findings of the UN report. Alaexis¿question? 21:36, 13 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Rape

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This is what the report says (item 26)

The CNN article says that The commission had also reviewed rape testimonies collected by journalists and Israeli police but said it was unable to independently verify these due to lack of access to the victims or crime sites, and because Israel obstructed its investigations which is also a fairly good summary. The level of certainly is much lower. Here they were unable to verify the evidence while in the previous item they explicitly write that they verified it. I'm fine with either omitting it from the lede or making clear that the evidence for this is weaker. Alaexis¿question? 21:48, 10 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Per my earlier response of avoiding having to add too much information to capture all these nuances (like the distinction between sexual violence and rape), I think it would be best to omit it, so I've gone ahead and done that. I also noted that my revert was for the footnote you added and not your edit, so that also fixes that. If @Smallangryplanet is also fine with that then it's resolved. Raskolnikov.Rev (talk) 21:56, 10 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Just saw that you made two edits in between. I think this doesn't violate 1RR given that the prior was not a full revert and the one done just now was on consensus, but do let me know if a self-revert is in order, and you or @Smallangryplanet can get to it instead. Raskolnikov.Rev (talk) 22:01, 10 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Raskolnikov.Rev, I didn't notice your second revert. Yes, it does count as a revert, so please self-revert. Alaexis¿question? 21:31, 13 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Works for me, thank you @Raskolnikov.Rev! Smallangryplanet (talk) 13:19, 11 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Events outside of the scope of the article

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This article is about the attack on Israel on October 7 and 8 in 2023. The report on human rights during the conflict published by the UN in July 2024 has a broader scope: it deals with violations and possible crimes committed between 7 October and 31 December 2023.

The report mentions "cases indicative of sexual violence" perpetrated by the Palestinian side on October 7 and 8 (see items 24 and 25). On the other hand, the sexual and gender-based violence committed by the Israeli side happened during ground operations in the Gaza Strip which did not start until mid-late October. We have a whole article about this topic, but it's clearly not in the scope of this article which is only about the Hamas attack. Alaexis¿question? 20:45, 14 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Alaexis the page may be about the October 7 led attack. But the UN report and the RS discussing it, aren't. We don't cherrypick information from it (as we should not), we present their conclusions per RS. The same is true of the Sexual and gender-based violence in the 7 October Hamas-led attack on Israel page. Also I don't know what the relevance of this is since we decided in the topic above to remove reference to the report? Smallangryplanet (talk) 23:55, 14 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That's not how it works. The scope of the report is different (7.10-31.12) and events that took place after October 8 should be described in other articles. Alaexis¿question? 20:42, 15 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
What edit would you like to make, @Alaexis? We cite the report several times in the body:
- https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/7_October_Hamas-led_attack_on_Israel#cite_ref-OHCHR3_142-0
- https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/7_October_Hamas-led_attack_on_Israel#cite_ref-OHCHR3_142-1
- https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/7_October_Hamas-led_attack_on_Israel#cite_ref-OHCHR3_142-2
- https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/7_October_Hamas-led_attack_on_Israel#cite_ref-OHCHR3_142-3
- https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/7_October_Hamas-led_attack_on_Israel#cite_ref-OHCHR3_142-4
Do we remove all of that information (and anything else that is from a source that is also talking about other days)? I don't see how that's sustainable. Smallangryplanet (talk) 21:10, 15 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The same one I already made. The abuses described in items 65-69 took place during ground operations in conjunction with evacuations and arrests, so not on October 7 and 8. Alaexis¿question? 21:22, 15 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Why would we do that here, and not for any of the countless other places in the article where we describe things that happened after October 7 and 8? For example: this sentence A two-month New York Times investigation by Jeffrey Gettleman, Anat Schwartz, and Adam Sella, Screams Without Words, released in late December 2023, reported finding at least seven locations where sexual assaults and mutilations of Israeli women and girls were carried out. It concluded that these were not isolated events but part of a broader pattern of gender-based violence during the 7 October massacres. The probe was said to have been based on video footage, photographs, GPS data from mobile phones, and interviews with more than 150 people. is not about the attacks themselves, but about a movie article that discusses the attacks. Not to appeal to policy, but is there a wikipedia MOS or anything at all that disallows discussing things that happened on other days in policies about specific days? Smallangryplanet (talk) 21:30, 15 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This is also about the events that happened during the 7 October massacres. It doesn't matter when something was published, as long as it describes the events that happened during the attack. Alaexis¿question? 20:38, 16 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, all five of the existing citations of the report refer to the events of October 7th. Is there anything else that needs to happen? Smallangryplanet (talk) 21:27, 16 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Not sure I understand the question. We can use this report in this article to describe events that happened on October 7,8 and we can (and do) use it in other articles as a source for abuses that happened later. Alaexis¿question? 20:55, 17 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
What I've been trying to draw out here is that this feels like an arbitrary policy you've invented, that seems like WP:CHERRYPICKING to me. For example. You did not remove the information related to the hostages from the Patten report even though that is also a set of events that happened later:
  • Some of the released hostages also shared testimonies of sexual violence during their time in Gaza.[293] Israel accused international women's rights and human rights groups of downplaying the assaults.[308]
or
  • Patten also reported receiving "clear and convincing information" that some of the hostages held by Hamas had suffered rape and sexualized torture and that there were "reasonable grounds" to believe such abuses were "ongoing".[316]
How do either of these sentences describe events that happened on October 7 and 8 (2023)?
You only removed the conclusion of the UN COI report saying Israel also committed sexual violence in the same time frame as the hostages. This by itself violates NPOV. I do not believe we should remove the accurate description of what the UN reports concluded simply because it is awkward.
The whole article is clearly not solely related to events that happened strictly on October 7-8, 2023, and absolutely no other time. There's an entire section, "Reactions", that's focused on events after that period, and there are many references to post-October 7 events throughout the article for what I hope is the obvious reason that things that are directly related to it are clearly WP:DUE for inclusion even if they did not strictly happen in that 24 or 48 hour timeframe. Smallangryplanet (talk) 22:09, 17 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think that the two statements you've quoted also shouldn't be in this article. Alaexis¿question? 21:22, 18 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I've removed them as well. If there are indeed "many references to post-October 7 events throughout the article" then we should remove them too, unless we reach consensus regarding a new scope (and probably a new name too). Alaexis¿question? 20:58, 20 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Alaexis you need consensus to remove long-standing content that does not violate any wiki rules. I've reverted your change per WP:NOCON. I wish you the best of luck on the RfC I hope you'll make to obtain that consensus. Smallangryplanet (talk) 21:53, 21 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Per WP:ONUS The responsibility for achieving consensus for inclusion is on those seeking to include disputed content. It looks like the policies are in conflict. Alaexis¿question? 08:56, 22 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This seems similar to the recent RfC at 1948 Arab-Israeli War. Both cases concern material with largely the same underlying origin as the topic of the article, but outside the specific scope of the article/without a direct line of causality from the article topic to the controversial material. In that RfC, your votes were;
Yes, per sources which make the connection clear and treat it as a consequence of the war, including Benny Morris (The war indirectly created a second, major refugee problem. Partly because of the clash of Jewish and Arab arms in Palestine, some five to six hundred thousand Jews who lived in the Arab world emigrated, were intimidated into flight, or were expelled from their native countries) and others, please see more in the discussion thread. It's certainly true that there were other reasons for the migration but the sources make it clear that the war was one of the major ones. Alaexis¿question? 3:14 pm, 29 October 2024, Tuesday (1 month, 23 days ago) (UTC−7)
No - per nableezy, makeandtoss, and others. We've already had this discussion and resolved not to do it. Obviously it was an important event on its own, but it's not a subtopic of the 1948 war. The Jewish exodus from the Muslim world does not make this suggestion (with the exception of an unsourced comment in the lead that I've gone ahead and removed), mostly citing the creation of Israel as motivation. As obnoxious as it is to pull up a fallacy, making this change would be a classic post hoc ergo propter hoc situation, where we assume that because the war happened before emigration happened, the two must be directly related. They are at best indirectly related, as you can see in many of the RS that have already been cited at length. Smallangryplanet (talk) 3:51 am, 27 November 2024, Wednesday (25 days ago) (UTC−8)
Safrolic (talk) 09:14, 22 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
WP:ONUS is as far as I can tell about verifiability, what we're disagreeing about is not whether or not the information is true, just whether or not it is relevant for this article. But, hey, why not.
What I said on the 1948 Arab-Israeli War article is not relevant, because that was a case where people were trying to add an unrelated topic to the article; in this case the content is related but did not necessarily occur on 7-8 October 2023. Smallangryplanet (talk) 09:46, 22 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hamas Document

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Again, I have to ask why the official Hamas document is not cited or referred to here? Is there room on this article for the actual Hamas statement on the attack - https://twitter.com/pmofa/status/1710630801379922370 - or do we continue with the established tradition of ignoring Palestinian voices? Mcdruid (talk) 03:27, 18 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

See WP:EDITXY for how to write edit requests in a way that increases the chances that they will be accepted. If you include personal commentary like 'do we continue with the established tradition of ignoring Palestinian voices?', editors like me are much more likely to just delete the comment. Sean.hoyland (talk) 04:20, 18 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Goals of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood

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Closing. This is dangerously close to a WP:ECR violation and PJQ33 has been warned about contentious topics already. --Yamla (talk) 02:16, 24 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

What is missing for me in this article is that there no clear statement on the goals of Hamas for Operation Al-Aqsa Flood. Could this be added to either the intro? Or maybe a simple as a section between Background and Attacks like the following: Goals of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood The goals of Hamas for Operation Al-Aqsa Flood were to a) capture hostages to exchange for Palestinians imprisoned in Israeli jails and b) end the blockade of Gaza. PJQ33 (talk) 04:39, 18 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

 Not done, no reliable citations provided for this change. --Yamla (talk) 10:56, 18 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Hi @Yamla. Thanks for your advice. How about adding a subsection like:
Goals of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood
The goals of Hamas for Operation Al-Aqsa Flood on October 7 were:
1) to arrest the enemy's (Israel's) soldiers for a prisoner exchange deal with Israel (see Our Narrative-Operation Al-Aqsa Flood-Web_compressed (1).pdf)
2) to encourage the international community and UN to investigate Israeli actions in Gaza and West Bank (see Our Narrative-Operation Al-Aqsa Flood-Web_compressed (1).pdf)
3) to end the daily provocations from the IDF into Gaza (see (11) State of Palestine - MFA 🇵🇸🇵🇸 on X: "https://t.co/Gp8gaR3OB4" / X)
4) to end the blockade of the Gaza Strip and the status quo of the West Bank (see https://politicstoday.org/significance-of-hamas-al-aqsa-flood-operation/)
5) to trigger a wider uprising in the West Bank (see https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20231009-haniyeh-outlines-context-and-objectives-of-hamas-operation-al-aqsa-flood/)
It is also likely that Operation Al-Aqsa Flood was intended to block progress with the Abraham Accords (see Why did Hamas attack, and why now? What does it hope to gain? | ANU College of ARTS & SOCIAL SCIENCES)
What do you think? PJQ33 (talk) 05:39, 19 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This is discussed in detail here, which is wikilinked in this article. Here we should have at most a short summary. We should strike the right balance between what Hamas itself said and what experts say. The declared goals are noteworthy but they are not the whole story. Alaexis¿question? 20:49, 20 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks @Alaexis.
I can see Hamas' goals scattered in this article and the Background you referred to, but then the goals get blurred into the wider narrative of the Gaza/Israel/Hamas/etc.
The difference for me is that from Hamas' perspective October 7 was a military action against Israel and this article is about that specific action, not the days before or the days afterward. Despite all the info collected so far, it is hard to understand what Hamas hoped to achieve from Oct 7, which is different from Hamas' motives and different from expert speculation. Accordingly, I think it would be helpful to have a record of what Hamas at face value explicitly planned to achieve from Operation AlAqsa Flood.
Having said all this, I recognise I am a Wikipedia newbie critiquing one of the most controversial events of 2023. If this suggestion is not useful for this article, so be it. Thanks for your patience. PJQ33 (talk) 02:13, 24 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Requested move 22 December 2024

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7 October Hamas-led attack on Israel → October 7 Hamas-led attack on Israel – "October 7" is the order used by virtually every source from every perspective on the subject. No other RM has covered this specific ordering issue. Al Jazeera Times of Israel Mondoweiss CNN Haaretz Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 01:19, 22 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Survey (RM 22 December 2024)

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  • Support MOS:VAR says, When either of two styles is acceptable it is generally considered inappropriate for a Wikipedia editor to change from one style to another unless there is some substantial reason for the change. MOS:DATETIES says Articles on topics with strong ties to a particular English-speaking country should generally use the date format most commonly used in that nation. For the United States this is (for example) July 4, 1976; for most other English-speaking countries it is 4 July 1976. This article clearly has the strong ties to Israel, specifically. While Israel isn't legally an English-speaking country, English is widely used, it does produce a significant amount of English-language coverage, and I think DATETIES shows that it's Israeli English coverage and usage which most defines the common name. The previous RM in June included a comment that had several examples of coverage from Israeli English-language media, all of which used October 7th- matching what you say about virtually all sources referring to the attacks this way. Matching common usage in the country with strong ties to the article is a substantial reason for change. Many editors in that discussion who supported a move also explicitly referred to it as October 7, or clarified their support was for either format. Note that MOS calls for format consistency throughout an article, so if the name changes, someone will need to go through finding and replacing. Safrolic (talk) 03:23, 22 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    To summarize the sources at that RfC, October 7 included Al Jazeera (Arab), Bloomberg, CBC, CNN, France24, Institute for the Study of War, NPR, New York Times, Reuters, Times of Israel (Israeli), The Conversation, Washington Post, Associated Press, CBS News, Council on Foreign Relations, Jerusalem Post (Israeli), ITV, La Croix International, and Jewish Chronicle.
    7 October included Euractiv, Middle East Eye, the United Nations, International Institute for Strategic Studies, Sky News, and the BBC.
    So, both Arab and Israeli English-language sources primarily use "October 7". So do most international outlets. The exceptions are primarily British. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 07:21, 22 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support seems slightly more common. Andre🚐 07:04, 22 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support: *October 7* version appears to be about 1.5 times more frequent than *7 October* version based on an unbiased search. Methodology: one single OR'd search that matches either title exactly, excludes social media, and requests 100 results (this query). Do search-on-page (Ctrl+F) for each title, de-dupe for any search result snippets (abstracts) that have the phrase in it twice, or have the phrase in both the title and the snippet, so each documents tallies one point if it has the term, no matter how many times. Results: out of 100 results, 59 for October 7, and 40 for 7 October. (Note: this method does not determine if there is a possible third title that is more frequent than either of them. Your search results and tallies may be different depending on your search history, cache, IP location, and other factors.) Mathglot (talk) 07:50, 22 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support: WP:COFAQ#ENGLISH says we should at least be consistent, and this would make us consistent with most sources, so I say go for it. Smallangryplanet (talk) 10:21, 22 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. The discussion of date formats above misses the point that the customary day-month order can depend on whether the year is included. Thus, one can find "7 October 2023" alongside "October 7". At Scholar, "October 7 attack" is about 4 times more common than "7 October attack". Zerotalk 11:28, 22 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion (RM 22 December 2024)

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Re "If the name changes, someone will need to go through finding and replacing": Changing the date format throughout an article is easy for those of us who have Wikipedia:MOSNUMscript installed. If needed, the closer can ping me to do it. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 06:50, 22 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It is even easier than that. Just place {{use dmy dates}} or {{use mdy dates}} at the top of the article, and a bot should come by and take care of the whole thing. Mathglot (talk) 07:16, 22 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Changing every date in every article is unnecessary. Most pages already don't use the full name in the text, they use piped links or redirects to make it fit the sentence. There is no need to change those to match the name if it changes. Changing every date in every page would also be inappropriate to because both Israel and Palestine use dmy and use English as a second or third language. e.g. Israel National library of Israel Israeli government "Since the war broke out on 7 October 2023" Palestine: palinfo PABS The month-day order is specific to "October 7", it was named that because it resembled "September 11". It's not the local date convention, it is a name for a specific event, and it is named after a foreign event. Industrial Metal Brain (talk) 17:41, 22 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

In an Ngram search (which covers only the period before this attack), "7 October attack" doesn't show up at all. But the strange thing is that there seems to have been a significant number of uses of "October 7 attack" before 2023. What were they referring to? Were those referring to Operation Badr (1973)? —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 18:56, 22 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

If there's no data before 2023, we don't really have an indication of whether that's just noise. If you look at "September 11 attacks" from 1950-2000, there's a big spike in the 70s and 80s right before another spike in the late 90s.[1] Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 19:12, 22 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There was the 11 September 1973 Chilean coup d'état, it's somewhat known as "the other October 7" now. The PFLP hijacked 4 planes that week in 1970, per September 11, but the 11th was a day near the end of a week-long hostage situation, not really an "attack". Industrial Metal Brain (talk) 20:54, 22 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
"Search for "October 7 attack" yielded only one result." I think it is just noise? Industrial Metal Brain (talk) 20:41, 22 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

RfC: Can we include information about events that did not happen on 7-8 Oct 2023?

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The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
Self-close, will be replaced by Alaexis's improved version

There has been some debate between @Alaexis and myself over whether or not it is acceptable to include information in this article about events that did not happen on 7-8 October 2023. The events and text in question generally revolve around references to a summer 2024 UN report (note that this is a link to a .docx file which your browser may immediately download) that deals with violations and possible crimes committed between 7 October and 31 December 2023. Some non-exhaustive examples of information that is being considered for removal/inclusion:

Some of the released hostages also shared testimonies of sexual violence during their time in Gaza.[293] Israel accused international women's rights and human rights groups of downplaying the assaults.[308]

Patten also reported receiving "clear and convincing information" that some of the hostages held by Hamas had suffered rape and sexualized torture and that there were "reasonable grounds" to believe such abuses were "ongoing".[316]

Possible options:

  1. Leave the article as is, containing references to the report and the information that includes references to non-7-8-October-2023-events.
  2. Remove this information entirely and strike any references to anything that happened before or after those two days.
  3. Remove information about anything that happened after 7-8 October 2023.
  4. Retain the content, but find reliable sources that specifically only deal with the events of 7-8 October 2023.

Other options...?

Smallangryplanet (talk) 10:05, 22 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion (information about events that did not happen on 7-8 Oct 2023)

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I don't believe 'events that did not happen on the 7-8th' is an accurate framing of the discussion between you and Alaexis. Plenty of content in the article is about things that happened after the 8th. Your discussion was originally about whether to include content about violence in Gaza in the article about the attacks on Israel, specifically saying that a UN report found "both Hamas and Israel had committed sexual violence and torture, along with intentional attacks on civilians." (By the way, the way this content is written implies that Israel participated in torture and sexual violence during the Oct 7 attacks/against Israeli civilians.) I also didn't see Alaexis try anywhere to remove the source report itself; in fact, they said "We can use this report in this article to describe events that happened on October 7,8 and we can (and do) use it in other articles as a source for abuses that happened later."

As I said a few minutes ago before you started this RfC, both this and the recent Jewish exodus RfC at 1948 Arab-Israeli War concern material with largely the same underlying origin as the topic of the article, but outside the specific scope of the article/without a direct line of causality from the article topic to the controversial material. Earlier here, your argument was that the scope of the source, the report, outweighed the scope of the article in considering what content from it to include. You cited WP:CHERRYPICK, which is described as selecting information without including contradictory or significant qualifying information from the same source, but I'm not sure how Israeli crimes in the subsequent invasion of Gaza, later on, contradict or significantly qualify the Hamas crimes in Israel that this article is about. I'm reposting both your votes here from that RfC again, as I believe they both are indeed relevant.

Yes, per sources which make the connection clear and treat it as a consequence of the war, including Benny Morris (The war indirectly created a second, major refugee problem. Partly because of the clash of Jewish and Arab arms in Palestine, some five to six hundred thousand Jews who lived in the Arab world emigrated, were intimidated into flight, or were expelled from their native countries) and others, please see more in the discussion thread. It's certainly true that there were other reasons for the migration but the sources make it clear that the war was one of the major ones. Alaexis¿question? 3:14 pm, 29 October 2024, Tuesday (1 month, 23 days ago) (UTC−7)

No - per nableezy, makeandtoss, and others. We've already had this discussion and resolved not to do it. Obviously it was an important event on its own, but it's not a subtopic of the 1948 war. The Jewish exodus from the Muslim world does not make this suggestion (with the exception of an unsourced comment in the lead that I've gone ahead and removed), mostly citing the creation of Israel as motivation. As obnoxious as it is to pull up a fallacy, making this change would be a classic post hoc ergo propter hoc situation, where we assume that because the war happened before emigration happened, the two must be directly related. They are at best indirectly related, as you can see in many of the RS that have already been cited at length. Smallangryplanet (talk) 3:51 am, 27 November 2024, Wednesday (25 days ago) (UTC−8)

The specific diffs involved in this RfC are here and then expanded here. (I chose the removals, but there are identical re-adds.) Safrolic (talk) 11:11, 22 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Don't forget the new rule about word limits in formal discussions. Selfstudier (talk) 11:25, 22 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Please don't refactor an RfC after participation has begun. I chose to comment at the top, not under all future votes (I support discussion above survey for this reason). If you feel a need, ask an admin and I'll move this to a !Comment - Bad RfC. I'm at approx. 650/1000 words including this reply and the quotes, and comfortable. Safrolic (talk) 11:42, 22 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Who is refactoring the RfC? I don't want to exceed my word limit here so I'll just say that I disagree with your interpretation of the conversation - I think the 1948 one was about whether or not unsubstantiated information could be included, while this is about substantiated information that refers to events after October 7th can be included. I get where you're coming from but I think this is a small but significant difference. Smallangryplanet (talk) 12:22, 22 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Okay. I think you should withdraw this RfC and draft a new one (or allow Alaexis/an admin to) which accurately represents the point of contention and the specific controversial content, and with accurately- and neutrally-framed options. It's not about whether or not to use the report or mention things that happened after the 8th. Look at 7_October_Hamas-led_attack_on_Israel#Revision_of_casualty_numbers. Safrolic (talk) 13:05, 22 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Alaexis asked me to submit my own RfC. The RfC as written is not about whether or not to use the report as a reference (we've already agreed that's fine), the question is whether or not we can cite even portions that involve, yes, things that happened after the 8th. That being said, if @Alaexis is willing to craft their own RfC, I'll happily withdraw this one. Smallangryplanet (talk) 14:09, 22 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Is that precisely what they said? Regarding the question, I repeat my first 3 sentences above. Safrolic (talk) 14:46, 22 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I would like to include the content in question, so I took it as meaning that I should do so. If I've misinterpreted that request, I repeat my last sentence above. Smallangryplanet (talk) 18:29, 22 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Safrolic, thanks for your feedback, it's really helpful to get outside view in this topic area. I'll try to come up with a different wording for the RfC question and options. Or maybe you'd like to do it yourself? Alaexis¿question? 19:09, 22 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]


Comment The article should concentrate on the events of the day in question. It is appropriate to briefly survey later developments in order to situate these events in history, but we should eschew tit-for-tatting and blow-by-blowing. It seems to me there is a meaningful sense in which prolonged captivity effectively extends the scope of the day for our purposes: the events of the hostage-taking and captivity should be covered by the same article. The entire crime belongs to the class of actions we are discussing; it begins with a hostage-taking on October 7, contains subsequent acts of violence committed during the captivity, and concludes with the death, rescue, or release of the hostage. Some other discrete act of violence beginning after the date in question does not belong to the category. Regulov (talk) 13:57, 22 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Survey (information about events that did not happen on 7-8 Oct 2023)

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  • Support (Strong) for Option 1: I think this information passes the tests described in WP:RELEVANCE and to remove it would be WP:CHERRYPICKING at best, NPOV at worst. We do not (as far as I know) have a rule anywhere else on Wikipedia where we reject a source if it includes information about events that happened after an event that is the subject of an article, and we continually include contextualising information about historical events for most other historical events we describe, even if the additional context is from a different date. We have cited RS that is both WP:DUE and relevant, and the information described should be accurately presented on the page. Smallangryplanet (talk) 10:10, 22 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Option 1 I can't really see any issues with the way it is. Lukewarmbeer (talk) 16:13, 22 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Bad RfC. The options 2, 3 and 4 are not mutually exclusive. As u:Smallangryplanet suggested, I'll propose a different RfC wording. Alaexis¿question? 19:05, 22 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Edit Request

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The article Allegations of genocide in the 7 October Hamas-led attack on Israel should be linked somewhere in this article. Ideally at the end of the lede where accusations of genocidal massacre are mentioned or at least in the Response section where direct allegations of genocide are mentioned. Fyukfy5 (talk) 14:48, 22 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It is linked, here's the section on it: 7_October_Hamas-led_attack_on_Israel#Allegations_of_genocide Safrolic (talk) 14:53, 22 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
My bad, I must've glanced over it Fyukfy5 (talk) 14:57, 22 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Proposed RfC

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I'd like to initiate an RfC after a discussion in which @Smallangryplanet and I weren't able to reach consensus. This thread is about the wording of the RfC.

Question 1: Which post-attack events should be included in this article? (open-ended question in order to come up with a general principle)

Question 2: Should this article include allegations of sexual violence and torture that were documented in the broader conflict after the Hamas-led incursion?

  • No - The article should focus only on events during the attack itself
  • Yes - The article should include later-documented allegations

I've tried to be as concise as possible but lmk if you think that more context would be helpful.

I'm pinging @Smallangryplanet, @Lukewarmbeer, @Safrolic and @Regulov who have commented or voted in the first iteration of this RfC. Alaexis¿question? 10:05, 23 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  • None of the above – First of all, I appreciate that you are willing to discuss what wording to use for a forthcoming Rfc; that is praiseworthy, and I wish more Rfc's began that way. In response to this particular case: by limiting the options to those two choices, you avoid what might be better ones. Imho, per title policy, the "title indicates what the article is about and distinguishes it from other articles", so that is basic. But articles often have "Background" or "Introduction" sections, which describe the context and events leading up to those corresponding to the article title, that occurred before the titular events; likewise, it may have a section at the end, on the "Impact", "Legacy", "Aftereffects", or other summary of what happened after the titular events, again to provide historical context, and to link it to other articles that cover later periods. But a simple 'yes' or 'no' here is inadequate, imho, to reach the best outcome for this article. Mathglot (talk) 10:33, 23 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    +1. Indeed, the main war article Israel–Hamas war includes a summary of this article at the second para of its lead and a section Israel–Hamas war#7 October Hamas-led attack on Israel as well as a background section and then other sections detailing ongoing effects, war crimes, diplomacy and so on.
    For me, this then does not actually need an RFC, it is more a question of whether secondary material has a logical before/after connection to the primary material.
    The first sentence of the UN HRC report mentioned above says "This report summarises the Commission’s factual and legal findings on attackscarried out on 7 October 2023 on civilian targets and military outposts in Israel including rocket and mortar attacks." so that part is obviously connected.
    The second sentence says "It also summarises factual and legal findings on Israeli military operations and attacks in the OPT, principally the Gaza Strip, focusing on the period from 7 October to 31 December 2023, examining the imposition of a total siege,
    evacuation and displacement of civilians and attacks on residential buildings and refugee camps." which is less obviously connected but is nevertheless a direct consequence.
    It should not be beyond the wit of editors to decide what is and is not due for the article. Selfstudier (talk) 11:24, 23 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    @Mathglot, how would you formulate the RfC then? Right now the content under dispute is not in a separate Legacy section but rather in the Reported atrocities section which describes the abuses and crimes committed during the attack. Perhaps we could add an additional option?
    Question 2: Should this article include allegations of sexual violence and torture that were documented in the broader conflict after the Hamas-led incursion?
    • A. No: The article should focus only on events during the attack itself
    • B. Yes, in a separate section describing the consequences/aftermath/legacy
    • C. Yes, in the Reported atrocities section (as in the current version of the article). Alaexis¿question? 12:29, 23 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Just a thought The issue really seems to me that we either focus specifically on the subject of the artice or we start to connect the events of the 7 Octobe attack with the history that led to it and the aftermath and consequences if it. I think we must limit the scope otherwise we will end up with a copy of the'main article' and strike a ballance in giving some context. So I am still broadly in favour of the status quo as we do that. However - the article is too long in many places. Do we really need 758 words to deal with the "Unsubstantiated reports of beheaded babies and children". Any thoughts? Lukewarmbeer (talk) 13:23, 23 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    This is precisely my concern. If we discuss the abuses perpetrated against Israeli hostages and Palestinian detainees during the whole war in this article, it would end up as a duplicate of Israel-Hamas War. Alaexis¿question? 14:07, 23 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
My opinion on question 1 is that the article should focus on the events during the attack itself. Extra information should be included only if it helps the reader understand the attack itself. As an example, the attack started the ongoing Israel-Hamas war. The reader gains understanding that the attack is part of a larger war. The details on the Israel–Hamas war hostage crisis benefit the article because the purpose of the October 7 attacks was to acquire hostages, and the attacks worked at achieving those goals.
Details about the abuse of hostages in captivity are less helpful, because they don't help me understand the attacks themselves. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 21:43, 23 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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