Talk:2023 Israel–Gaza war
Death toll: Civilian versus soldier
All reports that I am able to find in mainstream articles do not distinguish between IDF deaths and Israeli civilian deaths. The Wikipedia infobox at Wikipedia:2023 Israel-Hamas war has an ambiguous phrasing that implies ten times as many civilian deaths as military deaths. If this is the case it needs to be clearly corroborated. If not it should be condemned and disproven here in clear terms. Until this can be sorted I have commented out the previous numbers in the infobox. Harrystein (talk) 01:52, 12 October 2023 (UTC)
other fronts
How do we talk about other fronts? I.e, The West bank, Lebanon boarder with Israel and the Houthi attacks from Yemen. Do we have another section for them or a section for each? do we do another page? Or any other ideas?
Wikipedia currently has different pages for Houthi and Hezbollah involvement, maybe we are to small for this or maybe it does not matter? _0.0_ (talk) 06:56, 13 November 2023 (UTC)
- Wikipedia spreads them out not only to make room for more content but because making any unified analysis of the situation, or even reprinting geopolitical analyses by others, is outside the scope of their described goals. Not so for us. To me the whole thing is one event – the sum of the direct fallout of the October 7 attack, and a collective crisis which could call into question the entire balance of power in the region. I think there is no question that all of this should go in one page. All that we need is a proper page title, and current events usually don't get catchy names until years later (as you know from editing Wikipedia).
- So the question is one of emphasis:
- Et cetera. Using the term "genocide" is of course an option, but it may imply a limited scope (or be problematic for other reasons). The only split I can think of is between the agitprop goal of collecting data and rebuttals about specifically the genocide in Gaza, versus a measured analysis of how this will shake out geopolitically. But I still think this can go on one page in two sections, and the spillover of the latter can go in a page about Israel or something.
- Also, welcome to the site. Harrystein (talk) 18:35, 15 November 2023 (UTC)
Infobox: Proposition to remove numbers from infobox in relation to the 7th Oct attack.
The problem with this infobox (aside from them being finicky things to edit!) is that these numbers keep on changing, the two that stand out to me are the number of killed, put here at 1300 aprox (civilians) only killed, despite the Israeli media before claiming 1400 (total) were killed, changing that today to 'about 1300' (total). And the other is the number of hostages, put as 130 here but claimed since the beginning as being around 230 by Hamas whilst the number from the IDF raising daily after the attack but stabilizing at the same number as hamas a couple weeks ago.
The point being that these were probably perfectly accurate numbers with regard to what was being reported a few days after the 7th but they have constantly changed since, with the total deaths only having changed these last days and this website does not have the kind of active user base such as wikipedia (in which these kind of 'real time' updates are already an issue), and all that is only for events that happened on the 7th and 8th, let alone the month since, which we see IDF soldiers and Palestinian civilians death tolls rise daily.
So, having said all that my opinion is that we are better to leave at least some of these fields blank, I feel it is certainly better to not give information than give information that is likely to change and so leave us will false information.
I would like to reach a concensus on this though so please do reply, Thanks. :) --_0.0_ (talk) 06:56, 13 November 2023 (UTC)
- Part of why I made this page in the first place was to counter the media's spin on the death counts and in particular the annoying 1,400 figure which, until very recently, neglected to even ask how many of those had been killed by the IDF, and how many were even IDF themselves. I think that there is an understanding that a tiny site like this will have outdated numbers, and users can see based on the source publication and source access dates just how old the info is. The plus sign at the end of the numbers was supposed to indicate that these conservative estimates are likely to keep rising. But as for death counts that have been revised downwards, obviously that cannot be helped other than by regularly updating the page.
- My hope is that this page on a current event will get at least weekly updates to its figures, and so far I have been the only one attempting this. If you feel that Leftypedia should be more responsive, or should prefer to be silent rather than be outdated, then that is the question we can discuss. Harrystein (talk) 18:43, 15 November 2023 (UTC)
Facts of the Re'im attack: Hamas statement and question of return fire
@00: Thank you for being gracious in your edit description here concerning my citation of inaccurate information about return fire. When attempting to compile information from memory and only a few sources I knew I was likely to get details wrong. I assure you I had no ill intent. But as for the Sky News interview, I do not see how my rendering of the video was dishonest or unfair. In any case such a hostile interview is a poor source of information, especially after one month has passed, and I was only attempting to clarify an interview that had been distorted and cited by liberals online and in the media. Although I do not concede the point, there is no reason now to press the issue.
However, the section still needs updating on several counts, including the question of whether Hamas has claimed it killed any noncombatants, deliberately or not. If someone can find a relevant source from Hamas or elsewhere, it would render the source in question entirely moot and outdated. Harrystein (talk) 20:07, 15 November 2023 (UTC)
Separate article for Oct 7 and/or surrounding events
@00: You mentioned in your latest edit summary the possibility of making an Operation al-Aqsa Flood article. What did you mean by "pin down a timeline of the 7th days following it opening the war"? How many days did you want to include? If you mean the immediate events of Israel's response on the 8th, etc. then there is no obvious cutoff date for what to include and what not to. But if you want, we could make one article for the attack itself from October 7 to the day the last militant was killed and have a separate article for "Timeline of the 2023 Hamas-Gaza war". Personally I think both options would be fine (one unified article, or two), but I do not know what your reasoning is for creating a precise timeline either of the first week, month, or 58 days of the operation. Harrystein (talk) 21:29, 4 December 2023 (UTC)