Talk:Gali Berman

It has been proposed in this section that multiple pages be renamed and moved. A bot will list this discussion on the requested moves current discussions subpage within an hour of this tag being placed. The discussion may be closed 7 days after being opened, if consensus has been reached (see the closing instructions). Please base arguments on article title policy, and keep discussion succinct and civil. Please use {{subst:requested move}}. Do not use {{requested move/dated}} directly. Links: current log • target log • direct move

• Gali Berman → Kidnapping of Gali Berman
• Ziv Berman → Kidnapping of Ziv Berman
• Nimrod Cohen → Kidnapping of Nimrod Cohen
• David Cunio → Kidnapping of David Cunio
• Eitan Mor → Kidnapping of Eitan Mor
• Bar Kupershtein → Kidnapping of Bar Kupershtein
• Yosef Ohana → Kidnapping of Yosef Ohana
• Omer Shem Tov → Kidnapping of Omer Shem Tov
• Ran Gvili → Kidnapping and killing of Ran Gvili

– Per WP:BLP1E, the subjects of these articles are notable for their kidnapping. We have the same naming conventions for Kidnapping of Matan Angrest, Kidnapping of Liri Albag, Kidnapping of Arbel Yehoud, etc. There are a few former hostages who do not have kidnapping in the title of their Wikipedia article, but they are notable for other events outside of the kidnapping itself such as Noa Argamani, Edan Alexander, and Eli Sharabi. Wisenerd (talk) 23:51, 3 March 2026 (UTC) — Relisting. – robertsky (talk) 02:17, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

• Speedy support. There have been a lot of similar RMs like these lately, and as far as I recall, they all came out the same way. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 01:30, 4 March 2026 (UTC)

• Oppose for David Cunio David Cunio has a decent amount portion of the article dedicated towards his role as an actor in the film "Youth", for which he had received awards at some film festivals. EaglesFan37 (talk) 23:13, 5 March 2026 (UTC)

  @Wisenerd I would support for the rest of the articles nominated (with the possible exception of Omer Shem Tov. EaglesFan37 (talk) 23:15, 5 March 2026 (UTC)

• Support Abduction for those who were taken while serving as soldiers such as Nimrod Cohen. We have precedent for this: Abduction and killing of Nachshon Wachsman, June 2006 abduction of United States soldiers in Iraq, May 2007 abduction of United States soldiers in Iraq etc. It is rather awkward to say soldiers while serving in a military that is engaged in active combat were "kidnapped".VR _{(Please ping on reply)} 16:28, 6 March 2026 (UTC)

  @Vice regent For October 7th-related articles, the precedent seems to be Kidnapping or Killing of. For instance, Kidnapping of Matan Angrest. Kidnapping of Liri Albag, Kidnapping of Naama Levy, Kidnapping of Agam Berger, Killing of Omer Neutra.

  On that note @Wisenerd, Ran Gvili's article should just be Killing of Ran Gvili since he was killed on October 7th. The hostages with Kidnapping and killing of articles all survived weeks/months in captivity, while Gvili did not. EaglesFan37 (talk) 16:50, 6 March 2026 (UTC)

  "Kidnapping" does seem like a bit of a strange term for the capture and imprisonment of a soldier. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 19:15, 6 March 2026 (UTC)

  I mean from a personal standpoint I agree however WP:NORGW. It's a precedent for the abduction of soldiers in different conflicts, see Jill Metzger and William Francis Buckley Wisenerd (talk) 19:59, 6 March 2026 (UTC)

  @Wisenerd@Vice regent@BarrelProof

  I think that a lot of it has to do with considerations with International Humanitarian Law and whether Hamas as a non-state actor is legally allowed to take POWs (the ICC defined all those abducted as hostages, including IDF soldiers) .

  Kidnapping is officially defined under international law, but abduction is not (although legally both would be considered the same). EaglesFan37 (talk) 20:38, 6 March 2026 (UTC)

  Also in terms of encyclopedic value, we want to look at how the events are widely known. If the event was referred to by media solely as an abduction or a prisoner of war, then it wouldn't make sense for use to use the word kidnapping. However, media across the political spectrum, including the pro-Palestine Middle East Eye (https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israeli-media-decry-army-failure-after-hamas-clip-soldier-kidnapping-attempt) have referred to the abduction of Israeli soldiers in this context as kidnapping. Wisenerd (talk) 20:52, 6 March 2026 (UTC)

  That source says "abduct" in the body, not kidnapping (keep in mind that WP:HEADLINES are not a reliable source). I showed here (although this was nearly two years ago) that "captured" was more frequently used by scholarly sources than "kidnapping", when it came to soldiers, especially Gilad Shalit. If available is large enough numbers, scholarly sources should be given more weight than news sources.VR _{(Please ping on reply)} 01:22, 7 March 2026 (UTC)

  @Vice regent

  Looking at that thread, I'm not entirely sure why Naama Levy (who started her IDF service two days before October 7th, and was a non-combat soldier who wasn't even provided a gun) was being compared to Saddam Hussein, Che Guevara, and the mastermind of 9/11 as a standard of reference

  October 7th happened 29 months ago, I looked on JSTOR and there is barely any documents that refer to individual hostages. Available sources tend to use kidnapped or abducted interchangeably. On Wikipedia, Kidnapping is used for the remainder of the articles, so labeling Nimrod Cohen as Abduction would be in contrast to how the rest of the articles had been titled. EaglesFan37 (talk) 02:23, 7 March 2026 (UTC)

  The question is should soldiers, when captured during the course of hostilities, be referred to as "kidnapped", "abducted" or "captured". Perhaps we need a similar flowchart at this: Wikipedia:Choosing_article_titles_about_violence_and_deaths#Flowchart. It makes more sense to compare an Israeli soldier (eg Nimrod Cohen) to soldiers of other nationalities than to compare an Israeli soldier to Israeli civilian.VR _{(Please ping on reply)} 02:49, 7 March 2026 (UTC)

  @Vice regent

  The Kidnapping examples I mentioned earlier were all for IDF soldiers (although most of those were non-combatants). At the time any of the hostages were taken, neither Israel nor Hamas had officially declared war. October 7th, where hostages were taken regardless of civilian/soldier status en masse, is an event unique to itself, so comparisons to articles of other hostages is the surest way to be WP:CONSISTENT. EaglesFan37 (talk) 03:02, 7 March 2026 (UTC)

  You're not understanding what I'm saying. I'm saying lets ensure that all articles that deal with soldiers and military personnel being captured in battle don't use the term "Kidnapping".

  Lets take a look at more RS. Amnesty International, which is RS at WP:RSP, published a report that accused Hamas and other Palestinian militants of hostage-taking. First, they mainly use the term "abduct" and never "kidnapping". Second, it differentiated between civilians and soldiers: "International law requires those holding civilian hostages to release them immediately and unconditionally. Those holding soldiers must immediately stop holding them as hostages. International humanitarian law also requires those holding soldiers as captives to treat them humanely at all times, and grant them access to the ICRC and communication with their families". Like, HRW said Israeli civilians must be released immediately and unconditionally, but didn't say the same for Israeli soldiers.

  Ultimately, most RS use the "hostage", not kidnapping or even abduction. And if we can find a way to call these articles Hostage-taking of ... that would be most consistent with our policies.VR _{(Please ping on reply)} 15:54, 7 March 2026 (UTC)

• Oppose "Kidnapping of", but support "Hostage-taking of..." So Nimrod Cohen → Hostage-taking of Nimrod Cohen (and I would actually support doing that for all the civilians held as hostage too). As showed in sources above, the most detailed and reliable sources agree the real crime here was Hostage-taking. The use of the term "hostage" (and its variants), far, far outstrips the use of the word "kidnapping" (and its variants). For Nimrod Cohen alone, google news gives 170 results for Nimrod Cohen "hostage", while only 44 results for Nimrod Cohen "kidnapped". If anyone objects, I can do a more detailed analysis below.VR _{(Please ping on reply)} 16:02, 7 March 2026 (UTC)

  @Vice regent I'm not necessarily opposed to that (they are all known for being hostages), but something about the phrasing feels a bit awkward to me.

  On a slightly unrelated topic, how would you feel about leaving the David Cunio article as just David Cunio. I feel that his acting career makes him notable for more than one event. EaglesFan37 (talk) 16:17, 7 March 2026 (UTC)

  Agreed on Cunio on having their own article.VR _{(Please ping on reply)} 17:24, 7 March 2026 (UTC)

  @Vice regent Would you be able to add that in bold if you get a chance? This requested move discussion will likely close in the next day or two, and I don't want the user who closes the discussion to miss that. EaglesFan37 (talk) 06:36, 11 March 2026 (UTC)

  Ok bolded.VR _{(Please ping on reply)} 15:33, 13 March 2026 (UTC)

  @Vice regent Thank you! EaglesFan37 (talk) 15:40, 13 March 2026 (UTC)

Relisting comment: which term(s) to use? Kidnapping? Hostage-taking? – robertsky (talk) 02:17, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

• Comment: "Hostage-taking of... " is super unnatural. "Kidnapping of" or "Abduction of" are much more natural in my opinion.  Bait30  ^{Talk 2 me pls?} 05:53, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

We do have Category:Hostage taking. And IHL has a crime called "hostage-taking". And google ngrams shows plenty of usage for "hostage-taking of..." So this is valid and natural English grammar.VR _{(Please ping on reply)} 15:33, 13 March 2026 (UTC)

I did a PetScan of all the articles in that category and its subcategories. There are 4003 articles. 5 contain "hostage taking" and none of them are used in the "hostage taking of" construct. No matches for "hostage-taking". The IHL never uses the "hostage-taking of" construct. In the Karadžić and Mladić case in 1995 before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, the accused were charged with grave breaches for taking UN peacekeepers as hostages. They could've said "for the hostage-taking of UN peacekeepers" but they didn't. "Hostage-taking" is not a transitive verb. There is no verb "to hostage-take". Sure it exists on Ngrams, but who knows what the context was when that was used. But, you can compare it to the other options and see that that the other options are used more . More specifically here is the Ngram of their use as nouns .  Bait30  ^{Talk 2 me pls?} 18:22, 13 March 2026 (UTC)

Its pretty common, including in the context of October 7 attacks:

• "Hamas’ hostage-taking of over 240 people" Atlantic Council
• "killing and hostage-taking of innocent civilians" OHCHR
• "indicating that the intentional killing and hostage-taking of civilians was planned and highly coordinated" Human Rights Watch
• "This was the largest hostage-taking of the October 7, 2023 attack" Le Monde
• "Palestinian terrorist leaders responsible for the hostage-taking of October 7th."Policy Magazine

...and many more examples.VR _{(Please ping on reply)} 22:45, 13 March 2026 (UTC)

And its true that "kidnapping of" is used more than "hostage-taking of" ... maybe because more people are kidnapped than taken as hostage? As mentioned above, the reason we want to avoid "kidnapping" in the very specific case of IDF soldiers, is because soldiers captured in battle can't be considered as "kidnapped". Legal experts on this matter, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch (see links above) accuse Hamas of the crime of hostage-taking – not the crime of kidnapping – when it comes to the capture of Israeli soldiers.VR _{(Please ping on reply)} 22:48, 13 March 2026 (UTC)

What about "Capture of" for the soldiers? I'm only basing this on the naturalness criteria. Everything you have said so far has explained why "Hostage-taking of" makes sense. If you don't think it's good and there is no other precise term that sounds more natural than "hostage-taking of", then I wouldn't mind supporting it.  Bait30  ^{Talk 2 me pls?} 00:24, 14 March 2026 (UTC)

I'm fine with "Capture of", but I prefer "Hostage-taking of", as I believe that it is good to be specific in this case. The reason I believe we should be specific is that the Palestinian groups' violation of IHL was very much central to the significance of this topic and "Hostage-taking" best reflects that.VR _{(Please ping on reply)} 23:11, 14 March 2026 (UTC)