Talk:Israeli bombing of the Gaza Strip/Archive 1

Archive 1

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The bombing of Gaza is an ongoing aerial bombardment campaign on the Gaza Strip by the Israeli Air Force during the Israel–Hamas war. During the bombing, which began on 7 October 2023 after a Hamas-led attack on Israel, airstrikes have damaged Palestinian mosques, schools, hospitals, refugee camps, and civilian infrastructure. The campaign has been compared to other major historical bombing campaigns, including the bombings of Dresden and Tokyo during World War II. This photograph shows damage following an Israeli airstrike on the neighborhood of Rimal in Gaza City on 9 October 2023.

Photograph credit: Wafa / APAimages

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Hamas run casualties

There is an ongoing disagreement between editors about whether "Per Hamas:" should be included on the casualty count for this article.

• Yes – As the editor who added it. In similar-style of articles where one side directly involved in the conflict states the casualties, that said is also mentioned. Examples of this include Siege of Mariupol ("Per Russia" / "Per Ukraine"), Battle of Kherson ("Per Russia"), and even for this conflict with the Siege of Khan Yunis having "Per Israel" & "Per Hamas". This was removed by CarmenEsparzaAmoux with the reasoning, "discussed extensively on related talks". That is not a valid reason for removal as each article and topic must be discussed individually unless a Wikipedia-wide consensus for the conflict for it takes place. A large discussion has not taken place as far as I am aware, and other articles in this conflict have notes when one side of the conflict states the casualties. I !vote to restore this until a community consensus decides not to specifically either in relation to the Israel-Hamas war (affecting all articles under it) or it is removed from all war infoboxes (very unlikely). Do to CTOPS nature, I am not restoring it for at least 24 hours if no responses are given here. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 18:45, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

TL;DR – Support !vote for the Infobox format and layout as of this edit with an oppose !vote to the layout as of this edit, the current layout. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 22:19, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

• No – I don't have any issue with a note similar to the one used on the Israel–Hamas war infobox: "Per Gaza Health Ministry, the total number of deaths are 31,553" with a breakdown listed below. Just searching that page's talk archive for the term "Hamas-run" comes up with multiple discussions about using the phrase "Hamas-run" prior to the GHM: Updating language: The term "Hamas-run", RFC on infobox casualties, Why are we using Hamas casualty figures for civilians?, infobox attribution inline.
  This is all to say that although there is no Wiki-wide consensus, this exact topic has been discussed at length by many more editors on the main war page than are likely to contribute here. Neither the term "per Hamas" nor "per Hamas-run GHM" are included in the infobox there in regards to the GHM or total civilian casualty counts, so I would be strongly disinclined to introduce that language here. CarmenEsparzaAmoux (talk) 20:06, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

@CarmenEsparzaAmoux: — In that case, would you restore that part of the addition then? I do not want to as that is a reversion, but we both seem to be in agreement a “Per GHM” is acceptable. Note, I still believe “Per Hamas” is better and I will let others comment on that, but “Per GHM” should be added/restored. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 20:28, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

@WeatherWriter I actually never removed that part of the addition! Per GHM is included now as a footnote, similar to how the Israel-Hamas war infobox currently displays the information. CarmenEsparzaAmoux (talk) 20:42, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

Ok then we still don't fully agree on the format then. The footnote is not actually the standard method. The Template:Israel–Hamas war infobox even shows that, where it says "Per Israel" or "Per Hamas" format outside of a footnote. As I stated in my "Yes" !vote earlier, that is used on tons of other articles like the Battle of Kherson or even Siege of Khan Yunis. The format which you removed should be like this:

Per the Gaza Health Ministry:

• 30,717+ people killed
• 72,156+ people injured
• 7,000+ missing

That is the standard format for casualty articles, which is also used in the Israel-Hamas war infobox. Basically, what I'm asking you to restore is the bolded "Per" format, removing the enf note, which is not the standard format. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 20:57, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

I think where there might be a little oversight here is that there's a slight but important distinction made in the format used based on casualty type. I'm not sure when the decision was made, but the bolding "Per" format is used for Palestinian militant casualty totals as provided by Hamas (you will see that in the article and template you posted above), while the footnote format is standard when discussing GHM casualty counts within the Gaza Strip. Since we're discussing GHM numbers from within Gaza in this article, I think using the latter format makes more sense. CarmenEsparzaAmoux (talk) 22:14, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

I guess we shall have to agree to disagree on that then. I will be keeping an eye on this discussion to see if and/or when other editors comment or !vote about this. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 22:16, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

Sounds good. Overall, I think you're absolutely right that a consensus on standardization across articles is a great idea (even if we disagree on what that standardization should be!) CarmenEsparzaAmoux (talk) 22:19, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

References

Oregon University?

The introduction mentions an article published by the Guardian and conducted by researchers at CUNY and Oregon State University. Can someone with admin privileges please change the hyperlink text from "Oregon University" to "Oregon State University"? Thank you! Wschreyer (talk) 04:12, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

 Implemented CarmenEsparzaAmoux (talk) 15:06, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

Casualties only from the bombing

To date I have not come across any list of casualties that are only from the bombing and not from other Israeli operations. The exception here is this report considers casualties only from "explosive weapon use". Its conclusion is that there have been 15,797 civilian casualties. It doesn't have the complete demographic breakdown, but the partial demographic breakdown it has suggests the civilian casualties are: 25% men, 25% women and 50% children. VR _{(Please ping on reply)} 08:20, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

Strela etc

I'm not sure why Strela, Igla etc are mentioned in the infobox. MANPADs are incapable of shooting down high flying aircraft, certainly not F-35s. I don't recall any such incident either. I'm removing this.VR _{(Please ping on reply)} 08:28, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

IDF figures

@W. C. Minor: By a non-independent source, I was not referring to Ynet news, but to the IDF as an involved party. Clearly, the IDF figures belong to an alternative reality, which independent sources disagree with. Including IDF figures without their refutation would be misleading to say the least. Makeandtoss (talk) 15:31, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

70,000 tons?

That number is sourced from a report from “Euro Med Monitor”, and then another article from a Turkish news outlet which is also quoting that report. I don’t know who Euro Med Monitor is, but their report does not read like a neutral, objective, or rigorous finding. The only part in the report addressing this figure is this sentence:

“It is estimated that Israel has dropped more than 70,000 tons of explosives on the Gaza Strip"

There is no methodology and it’s not even clear who is doing this estimation.

I’m not familiar with this Turkish news outlet, but I could not RS quoting this figure from this NGO. It seems rather unlikely, and not a number Wikipedia should be suggesting is a fact. Telecart (talk) 17:09, 17 June 2024 (UTC)

Exact my thoughts. This should be changed in the article immediately. Half volley dropshot (talk) 22:09, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

Third citation is from a Robert Pape article in Foreign Affairs. Relevant quote is "Israel has... dropped at least 70,000 tons of bombs on the territory (surpassing the combined weight of bombs dropped on London, Dresden, and Hamburg in all of World War II)". CarmenEsparzaAmoux (talk) 21:34, 24 June 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for adding a third source but I don’t think it helps; the reference to Dresden etc. suggests to me he’s referencing this article in Wikipedia rather than having any independently validated RS for this reference. Certainly there’s nothing in the article to suggest any methodology that Pape researched this figure himself. Telecart (talk) 12:43, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 29 June 2024

Remove the sentence about 70,000 tons dropped; it is not reliably sourced. See discussion above in talk page. Telecart (talk) 12:46, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

• Please get consensus for changes before making an edit request. (t · c) buidhe 14:03, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

secondary sources

i could not find any secondary reliable source for the claim "In its defense, Israel has claimed only 16% of Gaza buildings were destroyed" does anyone have it? @Kentucky Rain24 i added ^{[better source needed]} which was reverted. also TOI is not in reliable sources list https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Perennial_sources Gsgdd (talk) 00:34, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

Many sources that are reliable do not appear in Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Perennial_sources which, as its name says, is only a list of sources that come up repeatedly, and includes many sources that are categorically NOT reliable. ToI is a mainstream online news source. You can take your concerns about it to WP:RSN. But since your search skills leave much to be desired, here are addiotnal RSes saying the same thing: [1],[2] Kentucky Rain24 (talk) 00:40, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

according to UN, in march it is 35% building damaged https://www.unitar.org/about/news-stories/press/35-buildings-affected-gaza-strip

why are we quoting researchers at Oregon State University and the City University of New York instead? Gsgdd (talk) 01:03, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

According to the UN is X, and Israel says it is Y, and that's what we write, based on reliable sources. Kentucky Rain24 (talk) 02:26, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 8 July 2024

Fix spelling of "unkown number of militants" by correcting it to "unknown" 2601:645:D00:E1B0:C043:32E1:65EF:8D21 (talk) 16:44, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

 Done Kentucky Rain24 (talk) 17:02, 8 July 2024 (UTC)