Talk:Gaza genocide/Archive 35

Egypt's role in blockade

This section mentions Israel's role but neglects Egypt's role in the blockade, which is important background. (edit: removed part about it 'undermining a narrative'). Michaelas10 (talk) 01:45, 17 November 2025 (UTC)

Agreed this should be included Egypts role in closing the border has been mentioned in reliable sources like this one https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-67133675 and is key information to the topic. GothicGolem29 (Talk) 23:48, 12 December 2025 (UTC)

This is linked and already covered in Blockade of the Gaza Strip and Egypt’s role should not be misrepresented. It is Israel that has imposed a complete blockade, including enforcement of a naval and air blockade on Gaza. Egypt controls only the Rafah Border Crossing, and it is within a state’s sovereign rights to regulate entry to its own borders.

Israel’s actions are materially different, as it restricts Palestinian movement not only into and out of Gaza but also between Gaza and the West Bank. Cinaroot (talk) 00:35, 13 December 2025 (UTC)

To be clear, Egypt only controls the Egyptian side of the Rafah border crossing. The other side of the border crossing is currently being controlled by Israel. JasonMacker (talk) 02:36, 13 December 2025 (UTC)

what about before the war? Cinaroot (talk) 02:43, 13 December 2025 (UTC)

• Without sources explicitly saying as much, including it with the intent of demonstrating that it undermines the narrative that Israel is solely responsible for Gaza's pre-war situation is WP:SYNTH. You need sources connecting it to this topic before it can be included. --Aquillion (talk) 01:44, 13 December 2025 (UTC)

  +1 ← Metallurgist (talk) 03:09, 13 December 2025 (UTC)

  Agreed, removed that part of the justification as it is irrelevant. I don't think it's WP:SYNTH to provide background that is directly relevant to other parts of the article. Many readers may not even be aware about the Egypt-Gaza border and hence the discussion of Egypt's role makes little sense without this information. Michaelas10 (talk) 06:20, 13 December 2025 (UTC)

  +1 Alexandraaaacs1989 (talk) 11:49, 14 December 2025 (UTC)

• The blockade was part of the Egypt–Israel peace treaty, which is well worth a read. Egypt said accepting all the refugees from Gaza like Israel wanted would be to cooperate with genocide. They don't want huge numbers of palestinians anyway and it is very harsh in the face of such suffering, but they do have a point. NadVolum (talk) 20:25, 13 December 2025 (UTC)

Hamas' ideology and aims

This section fails to describe Hamas’ legal designation and ideology, which are both highly relevant pieces of background, in particular given that the section at present does describe Hamas’ stated motivations:

"Hamas officials said the attack was a response to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, the blockade of Gaza, Israeli settler violence against Palestinians, restrictions on the movement of Palestinians, and the detainment of thousands of Palestinians, many without charges, whom Hamas sought to release by taking Israeli hostages."

What it does not say is that Hamas is designated a terrorist organization by the US and EU, which is standard factual context in other Wikipedia articles (including Background to the Gaza war and October 7 attacks). It also omits the group’s ideological documents that shape how many states and analysts interpret Hamas’ goals (Hamas’s 1988 Covenant calls for the eradication of Israel; the 2017 “Document of General Principles and Policies” softened rhetoric and allowed a state on 1967 lines but still rejected Israel’s legitimacy and affirmed “full and complete liberation … from the river to the sea”, per the Wilson Center). While I don't see a problem with writing Hamas' stated justifications, credible analysts have also explicitly tied the assault to Hamas’s long-standing aim of eliminating Israel:

• CSIS (Daniel Byman) argues the assault flowed from Hamas’s enduring ideology, not a departure from it.Michaelas10 (talk) 01:45, 17 November 2025 (UTC)
• The Washington Institute notes Hamas “invested in … militant infrastructure” to someday launch an attack that, in its view, could “contribute to the destruction of Israel.” Michaelas10 (talk) 01:45, 17 November 2025 (UTC)

  It is appropriate to identify Hamas as a terrorist organization when describing the October 7 attacks, as the attacks involved crimes committed against Israeli civilians and the designation provides necessary context about the nature of the actor. However, embedding that designation directly into a sentence reporting Hamas’s own stated motivations (for example, “Hamas, a terrorist organization designated by the US and EU, said the attack was a response to…”) risks becoming editorial and disruptive to neutral attribution.

  The article is about Gaza genocide. Not Hamas - so i do not support any such defensive writing Cinaroot (talk) 01:40, 13 December 2025 (UTC)

  I am not suggesting embedding it into that sentence - that would indeed be editorial. Rather, it should be attributed (e.g., “designated by the US/EU”) and added to the introduction of Hamas, something like: "Since 2007, the Gaza Strip has been governed by Hamas, an Islamist militant group which has been designated as a terror group by the US and EU, while the West Bank remained under the control of the Palestinian Authority." I agree that the article is about the genocide and not Hamas, but given that there is a background section and Hamas is already being introduced there, I see no reason to omit this key piece of information which is present in all other introductions to Hamas on Wikipedia. Michaelas10 (talk) 08:40, 13 December 2025 (UTC)

  Islamist militant group is the appropriate label to identify Hamas neutrally.

  US resolution at UN to label Hamas as a terrorist org has failed in past and it is not in terrorist org list by UN Cinaroot (talk) 16:18, 13 December 2025 (UTC)

Moreover, even some senior Hamas officials voiced the elimination aim outright:

• On Oct. 7, Ismail Haniyeh, who was then the head of the Hamas political bureau in exile, stated in a speech: “Today, the enemy has had a political, military, intelligence, security and moral defeat inflicted upon it, and we shall crown it, with the grace of God, with a crushing defeat that will expel it from our lands, our holy city of al Quds, our al Aqsa mosque, and the release of our prisoners from the jails of the Zionist occupation,” Michaelas10 (talk) 01:45, 17 November 2025 (UTC)
• On Oct. 24, senior Hamas official Ghazi Hamad said on Lebanon’s LBC that Hamas would “repeat the October 7 [attacks] again and again…until Israel is annihilated,” adding “Israel is a country that has no place on our land.” (LBC report; MEMRI translation of the original Arabic broadcast). Michaelas10 (talk) 01:45, 17 November 2025 (UTC)

• Again, most of this is WP:SYNTH. The sources you're citing are think tanks that don't really pass WP:RS and, even if they did, could only be cited for attributed opinion; but more generally, it feels like you're approaching the article like a Reddit thread or the like and constructing an argument out of points and counterpoints. That's not how Wikipedia articles work! These things might make sense for our article on Hamas, but to use them on Gaza genocide you would need sources that clearly connect them to the topic of Gaza genocide or to the argument over it in some way - you can't just arbitrarily imply, or construct an argument implying, "this point and this and this justify Israel's actions, and therefore it is not genocide" or something of that nature yourself. You need a source actually saying that before inclusion could be considered. --Aquillion (talk) 01:48, 13 December 2025 (UTC)

  I agree @Michaelas10 you should think really hard before posting further of your neutrality concerns. I also think you are taking too much of the talk space with these proposals Cinaroot (talk) 03:25, 13 December 2025 (UTC)

  Putting the think tanks aside, I've cited direct quotes from Hamas leaders about their own justification for the attack. As I wrote, the section currently cites some of Hamas' own stated other objectives. To include some objectives but not others would seem like selective omission. Michaelas10 (talk) 06:27, 13 December 2025 (UTC)

  Perhaps you read WP:SYNTH carefully before making another comment on contentious topic. -- Sameboat - 同舟 (talk · contri.) 04:22, 14 December 2025 (UTC)

Byman does not argue the assault flowed from Hamas’s enduring ideology, he examines that explanation and rejects it as insufficient. In the fourth paragraph, he says Yet Hamas’s hatred of Israel is a constant, and it does not explain Hamas’s decision to strike on October 7.

Agreed - I misinterpreted his statement. He does not say that Hamas' hatred of Israel contributed to the particular decision to launch the attack on October 7th (although he implies that it is a constant factor). He does, however, say they aimed to kill as many people as possible (with evidence), which could be mentioned. Anyway, I am striking out the original complaint for now. Michaelas10 (talk) 00:55, 14 December 2025 (UTC)

The Washington institute report is written by Matthew Levitt and Devorah Margolin. Per his Washington Institute bio, Levitt serves as a member of the international advisory board for both the Institute for Counter-Terrorism in Israel. The Washington Institute is a non-academic thinktank with a transparency score of 0 per the Think Tank Funding Tacker. This is at best usable for a attributed opinion.

Fair enough. Striking out as well. Michaelas10 (talk) 01:11, 14 December 2025 (UTC)

Re: Haniyeh's speech, we shall crown it, with the grace of God implies a future aspiration, not a concrete goal for Oct 7.

It is indeed not quite explicit in his speech. Striking through as well. Michaelas10 (talk) 01:27, 14 December 2025 (UTC)

MEMRI's translations are not reliable, so I'm not going to engage with that one.

The fact of this matter does not rest on MEMRI's translation - I linked to LBC reporting on it, and Haaretz - which is considered reliable - also reported this language. Michaelas10 (talk) 01:11, 14 December 2025 (UTC)

The LBC article (or at least its English edition) is relying on MEMRI's translation "We will repeat the October 7 attack time and again until Israel is annihilated," Hamad told Memri. The article also includes an embedded twitter post from James Cleverly containing the MEMRI interview as well.

The same applies to Haaretz: Ghazi Hamad – whose comments were transcribed by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), a Washington-based think tank. This is followed by a embedded twitter post from MEMRI containing the interview.

Even if we were to uncritically accept MEMRI's translation, Hamad doesn't actually say Hamas would “repeat the October 7 [attacks] again and again…until Israel is annihilated.” MEMRI uses that phrase in their twitter post outside of quotation marks, as the phrase translated as "annihilation of Israel" is said by the interviewer, not Hamad. LBC and Haaretz improperly attribute it as a direct quote. This is a sloppy mistake on their part which makes me less willing to accept other analysis in those articles. CamAnders (talk) 04:06, 14 December 2025 (UTC)

Fair enough. And either way, at this point a single sentence by one Hamas member in one interview is not strong enough to represent an organizational position. Striking this out also. Michaelas10 (talk) 08:25, 14 December 2025 (UTC)

These statements do not demonstrate that senior Hamas officials voiced the elimination aim outright so that claim should not be included.

More broadly, I would advise you to be careful about bludgeoning. A huge proportion of this talk page is occupied with your NPOV complaints and per your talk page, it seems like you plan to introduce even more. This would not be productive to the discussion on this page and I would strongly advise you against doing so.

CamAnders (talk) 20:51, 13 December 2025 (UTC)

Please do not accuse @Michaelas10 of WP:BLUDGEONING. There is no limit on raising NPOV concerns to try to make an article better. Indeed, WP:NPOV specifically says that "This policy is non-negotiable, and the principles upon which it is based cannot be superseded by other policies or guidelines, nor by editor consensus" (emphasis in the original). But more importantly, @Michaelas10 has demonstrated a willingness to work with other editors to find compromise solutions and followed the request of editors to space out talk page discussions over time (indeed, over months), which is the exact opposite of bludgeoning. Merely having a lot to say is not a bad thing. And it is far better to have conversations here on the talk page than edit wars on the article itself. (Per WP:BLUDGEONING, "To falsely accuse someone of bludgeoning is considered uncivil, and should be avoided".) Coining (talk) 22:46, 13 December 2025 (UTC)

I've struckthrough the specific invocation of bludgeoning out of an abundance of good faith. I stand by my broader point about the volume of posts. While Merely having a lot to say is not a bad thing, making a large volume of posts like this can have the effect of disrupting other editors, even if that was not the intention. CamAnders (talk) 04:20, 14 December 2025 (UTC)

I fully agree and appreciate your comments. To be fair however, I was having second thoughts about posting this section's concerns as I could sense they're not backed by very strong sources and are also fairly minor (as in, they won't move the needle in this article much one way or another). Going forward, I will limit my posts to more impactful issues and with stronger RS support - rather than looking for things to crticize in every section. Michaelas10 (talk) 08:17, 14 December 2025 (UTC)

Mention of Israeli objectives

The section omits several of Israel's stated objectives as well:

• Both the past wars (which are now mentioned) and intermittent periods have been marked by continuous rocket attacks on Israel. These were also prominent both on October 7th and throughout the subsequent weeks prior to the invasion. Halting these attacks has been cited by Israel as a central motivation for the invasion of Gaza.
• Similarly, so did achieving control of the Philadelphi Corridor to stop arms smuggling, which was suggested to have enabled Hamas' attack: "..Yet weapons continued to flow into the Strip, enabling Hamas to develop its military capabilities to a degree that eventually culminated in the October 7 invasion." (Washington Institute) Michaelas10 (talk) 01:45, 17 November 2025 (UTC)

Like the above, this is WP:SYNTH without a source connecting them to the debate over genocide directly. And again, you're citing several think tanks here that I don't think have the reputation for fact-checking and accuracy that would make them reliable sources. --Aquillion (talk) 01:50, 13 December 2025 (UTC)

This is not WP:SYNTH as the aim is a descriptive scope note of Israel’s self-stated objectives. Per WP:ABOUTSELF, primary statements of a party’s aims are permissible with attribution, and per they can be included as context without endorsing them. (By the same token, much of the other information in that section about Israel's and Hamas' objectives is not directly connected to the debate on the genocide either, at least not by the cited sources.)

To address your source concern, I can suggest replacing the think-tank links with the following RS:

Reuters on Philadelphi Corridor (Netanyahu: Israel will not leave until smuggling is prevented).

Sky News summarizing Netanyahu’s three “war goals” and linking them to Philadelphi control.

UN OCHA flash update confirming continued rocket fire in the week following October 7th: "..firing of indiscriminate rockets towards Israeli population centres". Michaelas10 (talk) 06:48, 13 December 2025 (UTC)

If we are going to expound on Israel's stated objectives, it is also worth noting that the UN commission of inquiry specifically considered and rejected these justifications:

: The Commission notes that Israeli authorities have claimed that their military operations in Gaza were conducted for military necessity and specifically as: (i) an exercise of self-defence in response to the 7 October 2023 attack in Israel; (ii) neutralisation of Hamas to ensure long-term security; and (iii) securing the safe release of Israeli hostages who have been detained in Gaza since 7 October 2023 In a previous report, the Commission observed that Israeli authorities consistently presented military objectives for their operations in Gaza, yet their actions and their consequences indicated other motivations, including vengeance and collective punishment ... The Commission concludes, based on the analysis below, that there was no military necessity to justify the pattern of conduct. (p. 54, emphasis mine) EvansHallBear (talk) 08:02, 13 December 2025 (UTC)

Agreed, it should be included. Michaelas10 (talk) 20:15, 13 December 2025 (UTC)

Hi @Michaelas10, I just noticed that your link to the Washington Institute ends with "utm_source=chatgtp.com". Have you used ChatGTP or another LLM to research or write these complaints? CamAnders (talk) 21:12, 13 December 2025 (UTC)

For finding some of the sources yes, but I always verify them and write the complaints myself. Michaelas10 (talk) 22:53, 13 December 2025 (UTC)

Non-relevant topics

This section currently includes several other pieces of information which belong to other sections or not at all, and does so in a manner which sounds like pushing a POV:

• "During the first 48 hours of Israel's retaliatory attack, IDF chief Herzi Halevi reported that the IDF attacked 1,000 targets. According to his wife, he told her that "Gaza will be destroyed". Reportedly, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu subsequently said he wanted 5,000 targets to be attacked, even though the IDF had not confirmed 5,000 enemy targets. Artificial intelligence was used to generate a list of targets, in many cases based on unconfirmed or outdated intelligence. About 10,000 Palestinians were killed in a month, including entire families. Shmuel Lederman called this "as criminal as it gets".[96]" – This first part of this belongs to "Onset" and the last part in "Direct deaths", as part of a fuller discussion. Michaelas10 (talk) 10:52, 12 December 2025 (UTC)

• "Several human rights organisations, including Amnesty International,[90] B'Tselem,[91] and Human Rights Watch,[92] have likened the Israeli occupation to apartheid; Israel's supporters dispute this characterisation.[93][94] A July 2024 advisory opinion by the International Court of Justice affirmed the occupation as illegal and said it violated the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.[95]" – It is important to not conflate the blockade on Gaza with Israel's policies in the West Bank, which are the central context for the apartheid characterization in the cited sources. Rather than present a one-sided characterization of an issue that is less directly relevant to the topic at hand, it makes more sense to include it where it is relevant in Hamas' stated objectives, and in a non-misleading way: "Hamas officials said the attack was a response to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank (which was characterized by human rights organisations as a form of apartheid), the blockade of Gaza, ..." Michaelas10 (talk) 10:50, 12 December 2025 (UTC)

• Note the sources for these sections; all of them are high-quality, comparatively neutral sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy that, crucially, directly connect them to the concept of an Israeli genocide in Gaza. Even if you disagree with those sources, and even if you disagree with that connection, it is not one that we are making ourselves as editors, it is one that accurately reflected from high-quality sources suitable to make such arguments. (The one exception is a cite to a human rights organization, presumably cited as a courtesy link; but it's cited alongside high-quality secondary sources to establish its relevance and framing, it's not the direct source we're relying on for that sentence.) Now, we can double-check each of them in-depth to make sure we're reflecting them accurately, but at least glancing over them they all look like proper sources that are being cited appropriately; the contrast between them and the synthesis using lower-quality sources you're suggesting above is stark. --Aquillion (talk) 01:55, 13 December 2025 (UTC)

  This is missing the point. I am not criticizing the sources or the fact they connect the information to the genocide, but rather the relevance of that information within that specific section. Michaelas10 (talk) 06:07, 13 December 2025 (UTC)