Talk:Israel–Hamas war/Archive 22

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Requested move 15 October 2023

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: no consensus. Arguments spanned along a few lines:

• WP:COMMONNAME: The most common argument in the discussion, and the most contentious. Editors were successful in providing prominent use for both the use of Israel-Gaza and Israel-Hamas in sources. Editors generally argued a certain name was the COMMONNAME, but really I think what has been established is that both names are rather common in high quality reliable sources. Some sources switched their framing as the discussion progressed; Al Jazeera, for example, was provided as an example of using Israel-Hamas and now uses Israel-Gaza. Probably, reviewing the discussion, "Israel-Hamas" is slightly more frequent in these sources (a relatively up-to-date summary appears in StellarHalo's comment); perhaps because (as per Scorch's comment) the AP Stylebook currently recommends the term "Israel-Hamas war".
  • Related arguments: The point was raised that variations involving Hamas are currently more searched for on Google.
  • A few arguments asserted that a COMMONNAME did not exist, so we should turn to considering the article titling criteria itself, or to other guidelines like WP:NCWWW.
• Accuracy and NPOV issues: Editors pointed out that Hamas is not the only participating group, noting eg PIJ's involvement or the separate theatre near the Lebanon border (see Iskandar323's comment among others). Some editors also felt it minimised the impact of the conflict on Gaza as a whole (see nableezy's comment). They also pointed out a feeling of inconsistency, as one group in the title is a state and the other is a governing party (as opposed to it being two states, or two parties). Some editors responded to this by stating other militant groups only play an auxiliary role, so the first argument not being relevant in their eyes.
• Consistency: Consistency tends to be the weakest of the article titles criteria. Because it was generally not considered paramount by editors participating in the discussion, it is afforded less weight in this analysis.

Editors clearly weighed WP:COMMONNAME as the most important criteria for determining the title of this article. Both sides generally failed to convince the other that theirs was the common name as reflected in reliable sources. The accuracy arguments were reasonable, and in a more established and stable article I may be more inclined to turn to those as decisive in the case of no consensus on the common name question. However, I note both the recency and of the war and ongoing changes in how reliable sources refer to the event. Due to these factors, I think it is better to allow reliable sources to converge on a name and this discussion to take place again after an appropriate time period, as it's very possible a clear consensus among editors will emerge. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 23:42, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

---

2023 Israel–Hamas war → 2023 Gaza–Israel war – This page should move back to a descriptive title both consistent with the WP:NCE guidelines and consistent, per WP:CONSISTENT, with Wikipedia's huge existing body of content on the Gaza–Israel conflict. In the rapidly evolving news, both "Gaza–Israel" (e.g. [1], [2], [3]) and "Israel–Hamas" are clearly extant variants. In this context it is reasonable for Wikipedia to refer back to its own naming policies, such as WP:NCE and WP:CONSISTENT, in making a choice. Speaking to WP:NCE, the guidelines call for the title to be composed of "when, where, what", and, in line with this, "Gaza–Israel" is a "where", while, by contrast, "Israel–Hamas" is not a "where" at all, but a hybridized "place–participant", and so lacks internal consistency, let alone functional adherence to WP:NCE. In terms of the naming discussion that brought us here, it is worth noting that in that discussion there was a considerable voting preference for "Gaza–Israel", but the RM went in a different direction that was less consistent with WP:NCE or consistent, per WP:CONSISTENT, with Wikipedia's existing content on the topic - unlike the prior title of "October 2023 Gaza–Israel conflict", which was consistent. There was also a second, snow-closed RM that presented no new arguments and was snow-closed for the obvious reason that it was one-sided in its proposed "where"/geography. See my vote below for further considerations excluded here for brevity. Iskandar323 (talk) 15:00, 15 October 2023 (UTC)

• Support: Comment: Beyond the consistency points raised above, another point that was inadequately incorporated into the closure of the previous successful RM is that the use of "Hamas" alone in the title is, from an encyclopedic perspective, simply inaccurate and imprecise. Whatever the news headlines state, the actual description of events in the news makes plain that the incursion into Israel was undertaken by multiple militant groups, including the PIJ (another major group), and possibly others, so "Hamas" alone is simply not accurate, let alone precise. Another problem with the reference to just "Hamas" in the title is the way in which it lends credence to the simplistic and mildly propagandistic characterization of all Gaza as "Hamas". This is an issue that has only grown as the conflict has progressed and clearly all of Gaza has become embroiled in it; it is now clearly not just Hamas that is feeling the brunt of this conflict on the Palestinian side, but all of Gaza, by virtue of the transparent and roundly acknowledged collective punishment that is currently at work in Gaza. To continue to use only "Hamas" in the title of this page is to pander to the Israeli-US-Western narrative that this is still some sort of targeted and rational military operation that has not drawn 2 million people into its crosshairs. Note that the child article October 2023 Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip does not refer to a "blockade of Hamas", or the "Hamas Strip", because this is not the scope, and these are not the terms. The notion that this war is limited to "Hamas" and has not broadened to all of Gaza at this point seems frankly silly, and again, headlines aside, simple unencyclopedic. Iskandar323 (talk) 15:00, 15 October 2023 (UTC)

  is it allowed for the person who suggested to support his own nomination? i mean nominating it counts as a support vote and you don't have to write it again Abo Yemen✉ 15:09, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

  WP:RMCOMMENT says not to do this for RM's. It is customary in other types of discussion where nominations are required to be neutral. SilverLocust 💬 23:40, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

  I struck the "support" and changed it to "comment". Let me know if anyone oppose what I did. Wikiexplorationandhelping (talk) 02:34, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

• Support - Israel is bombarding Gaza, it is preparing to launch a ground invasion of Gaza, Israel has cut off the electricity and water supply to Gaza, half of the population of Gaza has been displaced, over 2,000 non-Hamas civilians of Gaza have been killed. This framing of Israel is only at war with Hamas is as POV as you can get, it is pushing the Israeli propaganda line that they are only targeting Hamas. Nearly every descriptive title for a war has the territories. eg Russo-Ukrainian War, or 2006 Lebanon War, or ... . nableezy - 15:07, 15 October 2023 (UTC)

  As far as the claim that no source worth noting uses Israel-Gaza War, ahem. nableezy - 18:35, 15 October 2023 (UTC)

  Please note that international media is referring to the war as the Israel-Hamas war.

  Wall Street Journal, New York Times, CNN, The Guardian, CNBC, Al Jazeera, NBC... etc.

  https://edition.cnn.com/middleeast/live-news/israel-news-hamas-war-10-17-23/index.html

  https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/interactive/2023/photos-israel-hamas-war/

  https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/live-blog/israel-hamas-war-live-updates-rcna120978

  https://www.cnbc.com/2023/10/18/israel-hamas-war-gaza-live-updates-latest-news.html

  https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2023/10/17/israel-hamas-war-live-anger-after-israeli-strike-kills-500-in-hospital

  I have included mainly English language sources since we are dealing with an English language article. Homerethegreat (talk) 13:06, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

  The WaPo link you linked to is entitled "In photos: Scenes from the Israel-Gaza war." Also, just look at WaPo's front page, www.washingtonpost.com, and you see it's called "Israel-Gaza war" at the top. Same at WaPo's live update page.

  Al Jazeera also calls it "Israel-Gaza war" at the top of their homepage, www.aljazeera.com. It's still "Israel-Gaza war" for the top navlinks on their live update page, but the title of their live update page is "Israel-Hamas war". At best, Al Jazeera uses both (although I still give the nav link more weight than the headline, when it comes to common name and recognizability).

  NBC and CNBC are the same company, they should only count once.

  CNN, WaPo, Al Jazeera, NBC and many others, have been linked to, discussed, and categorized in depth here already. I agree with you that more int'l media use Israel-Hamas than Israel-Gaza (and I posted links showing that in my vote below), but these links you've linked don't all say what you said they say, and it's important that editors are very careful and accurate in representing sources in this topic area, so that other editors don't have to waste time fact-checking links. Levivich (talk) 16:43, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

  Ding. Also, while I disagree with your vote, I agree there is more usage of Israel-Hamas. But I dont think that usage is so much more that it makes it the common name, I think both names are commonly used. And when there is not a single common name we are obliged to consider neutrality as well as commonality. And here I think the balance of those two ends on the side of Israel-Gaza. nableezy - 17:00, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

  ...and while I disagree with your vote, I agree that both names are commonly used, and as we both know (but maybe not all the editors voting here know), it's not just about what "the most common name is," there are other aspects of WP:CRITERIA than just recognizability (the common name), a point that WP:COMMONNAME makes in some detail in its opening paragraphs ("Editors should also consider all five of the criteria for article titles outlined above."). So even if one or the other were "the" common name, that would not be dispositive, and I think pretty much everyone can agree that int'l media are using both names -- indeed, as we've seen in some of these links, some outlets literally put both names on the same page.

  BTW preemptive hats off to whomever closes this discussion :-) Levivich (talk) 17:35, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose. WP:NPOV phrasing. Israel is a political entity. Hamas is the political entity governing the Gaza Strip. Loksmythe (talk) 15:11, 15 October 2023 (UTC)

• No, the Israeli government is a political entity, Israel is a country. Hamas is the government of territory known as Gaza. You dont have IDF-Hamas war either, your argument here is nonsensical. nableezy - 15:12, 15 October 2023 (UTC)

  I almost brought up that IDF–Hamas would be the like-for-like equivalent, but dropped it, again for brevity. But yes, Israel is a territory, like Gaza, the IDF, like Hamas, is doing the fighting. Iskandar323 (talk) 19:56, 15 October 2023 (UTC)

• Support It is high time. Hamas is just one of the groups fighting. It is true that it rules Gaza. But Israel's problem is originally with the Palestinians as a whole because of the political impasse. Most Palestinians killed are not affiliated with Hamas.--Dl.thinker (talk) 15:20, 15 October 2023 (UTC)
• Support. It was completely wrong for the article to be called the "Israel-Hamas war" in the first place. It's not just Hamas fighting Israel and that is abundantly clear, especially now that Israel is making incursions into Gaza, a place in which not every single man, woman, and child is a fighter for Hamas. HadesTTW (he/him • talk) 16:02, 15 October 2023 (UTC)
• Support — Per what nableezy and Iskandar323 said. FunLater (talk) 16:12, 15 October 2023 (UTC)
• Support: Israel is the country, not the government in charge of the country that is fighting the war. The Russia-Ukraine war for example is not Putin-Zelensky war. RPI2026F1 (talk) 16:56, 15 October 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose. Reliable sources are overwhelming that this is a war between Israel and Hamas. I would favor "Hamas-Israel War" (reversing the order), due to the nature of how it began, however for the purposes of this discussion I support leaving the title alone. Coretheapple (talk) 16:59, 15 October 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose, per WP:COMMONNAME. Searching for news articles from the past hour I find 19 articles using "Israel-Hamas war" or similar, including the New York Times, The Guardian, and Vanity Fair. For "Israel-Gaza war" or similar I find just four, and none from any sources worth noting.

At the moment, this descriptive title is also the WP:COMMONNAME, and I'm not seeing any sufficiently strong justifications for ignoring the common name. BilledMammal (talk) 17:19, 15 October 2023 (UTC)

• Support: Normally we put 2023 Israel–Palestine war, but the title 2023 Israel–Hamas war is not appropriate compared to 2023 Israel–Gaza war. --Fayçal.09 (talk) 17:34, 15 October 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose due to the common name argument listed above. KD0710 (talk) 17:38, 15 October 2023 (UTC)
• Support per comments above. —Stewpot 17:43, 15 October 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose Per BilledMammal - The term "Israel-Hamas war" is more frequently used in recent news articles, as evidenced by 19 articles from top tier, reputable sources like the New York Times, The Guardian, and Vanity Fair. In contrast, the term "Israel-Gaza war" appears in only four articles from less notable sources. Given this, the term "Israel-Hamas war" not only serves as a descriptive title but also aligns with our policy and I see no compelling reasons to deviate from using the common name at this time. Marokwitz (talk) 17:48, 15 October 2023 (UTC)
• Support I find the "geographical argument" persuasive and it is in line with our previous namings. It is a bit rich to imply by article title that the war is solely with Hamas at the same time as killing thousands of Palestinian Gazans along with the extensive destruction of Gaza’s infrastructure. Selfstudier (talk) 18:04, 15 October 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose per my comments on the aforementioned snow-closed RM, which for reference I quote below:

[Oppose] on two accounts: that (1) throughout the course of events Hamas is the primary actor in the majority of attacks, with other militant groups playing a supportive role, and (2) Hamas being the only belligerent named as the enemy belligerent in most sources' descriptions of the Israeli declaration of war, e.g. [4] [5]. This would not be the first military conflict on Wikipedia after only the two major parties of several involved (e.g. Russo-Georgian War not including unrecognised states South Ossetia or Abkhazia, or the Iran-Iraq War not including the variety of militant groups of various nationalities), and it would not be unreasonable to follow that convention rather than incorrectly imply that, for example, Palestinian Islamic Jihad had anywhere near as much authority or influence over the attacks as Hamas.

The argument applies in the exact same way for the exact same reasons now, among which are arguments for its consistency with other wars named in a similar manner. A "geographical" descriptor identifying Gaza has its own issues: a Lebanese and Syrian front is also active and there are ongoing events in the West Bank. And above all that, there is BilledMammal's WP:COMMONNAME argument above, which serves as an ideal tiebreaker for all of the descriptive titles on offer which, by necessity, all fail to completely describe the war. Benjitheijneb (talk) 18:07, 15 October 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose per BilledMammal. Pg 6475 ^TM 18:14, 15 October 2023 (UTC)
• Support as supporters' comments are more convincing.--Ameen Akbar (talk) 18:16, 15 October 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose. A new move request every day? The three cherry-picked sources cited by the proposer not withstanding, the majority of reliable sources use "Israel-Hamas", i.e., WP:COMMONNAME applies. In addition to the sources mentioned by BilledMammal, there's also AlJazeera, CNN, CNBC, Reuters, NBC, NPR, WSJ, Foreign Policy. WP:CRITERIA for article titles says that the five characteristics are goals, not rules. Consistency with other article titles takes a back seat to common name (recognizability), naturalness, precision, and concision. Space4Time3Continuum2x (cowabunga) 18:33, 15 October 2023 (UTC)
• Support as Hamas gets less and less focus on the war, with the attacks primarily targeting Gaza. Hansen Sebastian^Talk 19:01, 15 October 2023 (UTC)
• Support Aside from it being a weird mix of actor and place, the original title may have made sense initially, but Israel is now bombing and preparing to invade Gaza- not Hamas.. Zellfire999 (talk) 20:00, 15 October 2023 (UTC)
• Comment, this might not be very helpful, but i do not think either one is necessarily an better or worse. the status quo appears to me to be just as good as this suggested move.Iljhgtn (talk) 20:25, 15 October 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose Israel and Hamas are at war. Israel is not at war with Gaza. Major English language newspapers call it the "Israel-Hamas" war.—Finell 21:33, 15 October 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose per WP:COMMONNAME as the vast majority of sources are referring to it as the Israel Gaza war in order to distinguish this separate, declared, war from the conflict at large. This is far simpler for both editors and users. Also, there is the technical matter of Gaza as an entity; I do not support any change but if there was one I would think it should be some form of 2023 Israel War in Gaza. Lenny Marks (talk) 22:52, 15 October 2023 (UTC)
• Support For same reasons as other supporters above. VSatire (talk) 23:24, 15 October 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose Let's follow reliable sources, see WP:COMMONNAME. Infinity Knight (talk)
• Oppose Israel is at war with the terrorist organization, not the strip of land the terrorist organization is de facto in charge of. Reliable sources seem to characterize it as Israel-Hamas, so WP:COMMONNAME applies. Zaathras (talk) 23:43, 15 October 2023 (UTC)

  Reliable sources also refer to it as Israel-Gaza War. Example Washington Post, BBC, ABC (Australia), The Times (UK), The Times of Israel (!) nableezy - 00:04, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

• Strongly support. As said earlier, the war is mainly centered in and around Gaza, and “hamas” is not the only war party, all palestinian resistance factions and paramilitaries are in this war. The current title neither specify where the war is exactly and ignores all other major palestinian paramilitary groups in this war. I don’t see why it should be any different or exceptional from 2014 Gaza War Stephan rostie (talk) 00:30, 16 October 2023 (UTC)
• Move to Israel–Hamas war, which already redirects here, per WP:PRIMARYTOPIC and WP:COMMONNAME. InfiniteNexus (talk) 00:47, 16 October 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose, per WP:COMMONNAME. Also, "Israel-Gaza" would be misleading because the war is already happening in a number of other areas, such as North of Israel, West Bank, etc. - see 2023_Israel–Hamas_war#Outside_Israel_and_the_Gaza_Strip. My very best wishes (talk) 01:29, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

  If you mean the exchanges with Hezbollah in the north then yes, that is another reason why "Hamas" is ridiculous in the title, since again, it's scope is far broader. But it is centred on Gaza. Iskandar323 (talk) 10:28, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose per WP:COMMONNAME. The involvement of other Palestinian factions is trivial and opportunistic, and the war is taking place now because Hamas chose to launch an aggressive campaign of genocidal antisemitic butchery. Cullen328 (talk) 01:51, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

  @Cullen328: I would suggest that the involvement of Palestinian Islamic Jihad is not trivial at all. This is a group that Israel is almost as equally fixated on as Hamas - all of the incursions into Jenin in the past year or so have been to root out the PIJ. It's grossly simplistic to ignore all of this in a descriptive title, in addition to being patently imprecise. As one editor quizzed earlier, how is this different from an other Gaza war in terms of its actors? The answer is, it's not. Hamas is always a large component of any engagement between Israel and militant groups in Gaza, but not a single one of the previous Gaza war titles go down this pigeonholing route. It's inconsistent. Iskandar323 (talk) 10:34, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose as per WP:COMMONNAME. The war has been called by various media outlets such as CNN, Reuters, Axios, CNBC, the Wall Street Journal, etc. as the "Israel-Hamas war". --WellThisIsTheReaper ^Grim 03:22, 16 October 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose per Cullen. Andre🚐 03:26, 16 October 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose for now per WP:COMMONNAME. The common name might change in the future, as the role of other Palestinian groups becomes clearer. I'd also note that the word 'Israel' in the title does not refer to the place in which the fighting is occurring, but to one of the polities engaged in hostilities. Riposte97 (talk) 03:30, 16 October 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose for now per common name, which was evaluated in the last discussion and hasn't changed (see my comment in the last move request). I'll just bring up another source which was never brought up before in this discussion or the last: Le Monde, a major newspaper of record, which uses "Israel-Hamas" too. Also, we want people to see this article, and recognizability and naturalness are WP:CRITERIA too (The title is one that readers are likely to look or search for); look at which search term is most-used to refer to this conflict: Google Trends; people search for "Israel-Hamas" 10-times more than they search for "Gaza-Israel". I also disagree with the consistency argument; that's a high priority for articles that are part of a series (e.g. "Accession of Turkey to the EU", "Accession of Serbia to the EU"), but is a lower priority for articles that are merely about topics of the same nature; WP:NCE, brought up above, also says to priorise the common name. DFlhb (talk) 08:15, 16 October 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose The war as stated is not against Gaza but against Hamas. In similar context, when the US fought ISIS in Syria, it fought ISIS not Syria. Furthermore Hamas operates in other locations, not just Gaza. Israel is fighting Hamas mostly in Gaza but also in other locations. Therefore it seems that the name Israel-Hamas war is most fitting. It also appears to be the name used most in the media, by the Guardian, New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, CNN and more. I'll include a few links for proof.

https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/israel-hamas-war-gaza-conflict

https://edition.cnn.com/middleeast/live-news/israel-news-hamas-war-10-16-23/index.html Homerethegreat (talk) 08:19, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

• Support per Nableezy and Iskandar323. Skitash (talk) 10:09, 16 October 2023 (UTC)
• Support per nom. Gaza City is about to be wiped off the map; regardless of what Israel claims, this is not just a war against Hamas. —Trilletrollet [ Talk | Contribs ] 12:01, 16 October 2023 (UTC)
• Support per above Idiosincrático (talk) 12:37, 16 October 2023 (UTC)
• Support, the WP:COMMONNAME is pure propaganda and just straight up false as outlined above. At some point we have to recognize that and go with the encyclopedic name. 2023 Israel-Gaza war would be better though. At some point we also have to consider 2023 Israel–Palestine war/2023 Palestine–Israel war as there have been killings of Palestinians in the West Bank by the IDF. eduardog3000 (talk) 13:42, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

• Strongly support. This war does not only involves Hamas, but also many other factions of Palestinian resistance such as Jihad Islam, PFLP, Jenin Brigades etc.

Si Gam (talk) 13:58, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

References

@WillowCity's comment below is also really good. I'm backing it up as an EC user. eduardog3000 (talk) 17:01, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

Just noting that I have removed that comment per WP:ARBECR, along with all the other ones. Levivich (talk) 17:22, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

The comment in question. I completely agree with it:

The WP:COMMONNAME argument is a red herring. The actual policy provides:

"...Neutrality is also considered; see § Neutrality in article titles, below. Article titles should be neither vulgar (unless unavoidable) nor pedantic. When there are multiple names for a subject, all of which are fairly common, and the most common has problems, it is perfectly reasonable to choose one of the others."

Per the above, "Israel-Gaza War" is in common use. The current name has problems as outlined above. The current title is also pedantic, being based on the formalistic argument that "well, Israel says it's at war with Hamas". eduardog3000 (talk) 18:00, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

Worth noting that sources that have switched to using Gaza instead of Hamas are all using the form Israel-Gaza, not Gaza-Israel, so 2023 Israel-Gaza war. eduardog3000 (talk) 17:11, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

• Support per the comments made by Iskandar323 - Amtoastintolerant (talk) 13:57, 16 October 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose: Happy with the current title per various reasons given above by other users.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 14:34, 16 October 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose The current title is preferred by a broad spectrum of English-language sources – Aljazeera, NYT, Guardian, Financial Times, South China Morning Post. --Andreas JN466 14:39, 16 October 2023 (UTC)
• Strongly oppose this war is no longer in Gaza. Hamas militants can be found in other places other than Gaza Abo Yemen✉ 15:07, 16 October 2023 (UTC)
• Support. Per the OP, is in line with WP:NCE guidelines and consistent, per WP:CONSISTENT, with WP large body of content on the Gaza–Israel conflict. Also, from a WP:COMMONSENSE perspective, most of the non-Israeli deaths are of Gaza residents, and Israel is apparently about to "invade" Gaza and has requested that half the population of Gaza leave Gaza. Aszx5000 (talk) 15:54, 16 October 2023 (UTC)
• Strongly oppose "Gaza-Israel" because it seems nobody uses that... it's "Israel-Hamas" or "Israel-Gaza," but never "Gaza-Israel," at least not that I've seen (including the links in the OP), unless I've missed something. I hope the closer pays attention to the number of editors who are supporting "Gaza-Israel war" while pointing to sources that say "Israel-Gaza war"...

  Oppose "Israel-Gaza war" because "Israel-Hamas" seems to be the more common name as compared with "Israel-Gaza," although that might change in the future: "Israel-Hamas" in AP, Reuters, NYT, WSJ, CNN, Independent, Guardian, Times of India, The Hindu, Japan Times, News.com.au; "Israel-Gaza" in BBC, WaPo, Times (UK), Al Jazeera; some like South China Morning Post use both (example, example). Based on this, "Israel-Hamas." I'd change my mind if/when the RS change the name. Levivich (talk) 17:13, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose: a vote was held on this topic a few days ago and was almost unanimously opposed. Great Mercian (talk) 17:28, 16 October 2023 (UTC)
• Support as the war is increasingly shifting from just a Hamas attack and Israel response to a full-on confrontation between Israel and Gaza forces, including Hamas. The reality of an invasion of Gaza is shifting the focus of the war on a Gaza-Israel conflict. Paul Vaurie (talk) 17:30, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

• Support title change to: "2023 Gaza-Israel war"

The war is not exclusively limited to fighting between Israel and Hamas. Israeli state is fighting multiple Palestinian factions. There are also skirmishes with Hezbollah in the Lebanese border.

Also see the article Hamas government of October 2016: "The Hamas government of October 2016 is a faction of the Palestinian government based in Gaza and is effectively the third Hamas dominated government in the Gaza Strip.."

The Israeli state is waging a war against the government of Gaza. Multiple Palestinian armed groups are fighting alongside Hamas. Shadowwarrior8 (talk) 17:41, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose for now. As others have said, most sources currently use "Israel-Hamas war." It's also the phrase that currently receives the most search traffic. In general, we follow what the sources say. And particularly for current events like this, it's not terribly important to get this article's name exactly "right." An accepted name for the conflict will develop eventually outside of Wikipedia, at which point the name for the article will be obvious. For now, we can call it what most other people are calling it. PhotogenicScientist (talk) 20:34, 16 October 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose The current war is with Gaza-ruling Hamas rather than Gaza itself which does not have its own regular army. Israel itself announced Hamas as the specific target, with the aim to avoid or minimize casualties among Gazan civilians. Brandmeister^talk 20:57, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose. Reliable sources state that Israel formally declared war on Hamas, not on other Palestinian militant groups.

Merlin^sorca 22:06, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

• Support per Stephan rostie. Salvabl (talk) 00:13, 17 October 2023 (UTC)
• Support per Iskandar323, nableezy, Selfstudier, Zellfire999, Stephan rostie and Shadowwarrior8. Daask (talk) 00:54, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose Not only is Gaza an inaccurate description of the area. The conflict is extends to other areas, including the cyber domain and information warfare. The title is more accurate to say Israel-Hamas as it does currently. ~

.

Aeonx (talk) 03:11, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

• Support: Obviously DFLP and PFLP are not Hamas. They're communist parties. It is completely unacceptable to confuse the communist with islamic. ——🦝 The Interaccoonale ^{Will be the raccoon race} _{(talk・contribs)} 04:32, 17 October 2023 (UTC)
• Support. It seems that both "Israel-Gaza war" and "Israel-Hamas war" are both common names for the conflict. Sources that use "Israel-Gaza" include BBC News[6], Washington Post[7], The Hindu[8], ABC News[9], Foreign Policy (magazine)[10], NDTV[11], reuters[12], Medicines Sans Frontiers[13], CP24[14], France24[15], United Nations[16]. Source that use "Gaza war" include Reuters[17], CNN[18], Council on Foreign Relations[19], Financial Times[20], Vox[21], Le Monde Diplomatique[22]. So clearly, having "Gaza" (as opposed to "Hamas") in the title is consistent with WP:COMMONNAME. The additional benefit of the proposed title is that it is WP:CONSISTENT with Israel-Gaza conflict etc, which is something that "Israel-Hamas war" is not.VR _talk 07:54, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

  WaPo did switch, but several outlets you mention are still using "Israel-Hamas": Foreign Policy magazine[23], Financial Times[24], and Vox[25]

  However, I found another site that uses "Israel-Gaza", Stratfor[26] DFlhb (talk) 13:04, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

  Reuters uses "Israel-Hamas war" as their topic section, not "Gaza-Israel war".

  Same for the Hindu. You're characterizing that as "Gaza" when it uses "Hamas." Go to TheHindu.com and just look at their front page. The story you linked to isn't by TheHindu, it's by news agencies republished on TheHindu's website (that's why the byline is "agencies").

  It's not really fair to pick out one article that uses one phrasing and then claim the entire publication uses that phrasing based on what that one article says--especially when the one article is a reprint. Look at the topic headings -- the links on the home page -- to see how a publication describes a topic. You've miscategorized a bunch of the sources there. Levivich (talk) 14:16, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

  The CNN story you linked, which you say uses "Gaza war", has the headline "Israel is at war with Hamas"

  I'm not going to go through any more of your examples. I think you need to clean that up as your links don't seem to say what you say they say. Levivich (talk) 14:20, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose. Sources that use the term "Israel-Hamas War" include CNN, AP News, CNBC, Al Jazeera, The Guardian, Vox, Euro News, NBC News, The Wall Street Journal, NPR, The New York Times, Reuters, The Times of India, Time Magazine, The Hindu, BBC News, and others. This is clearly a common name used for this conflict, and it should stay unless someone can demonstrate that "Israel-Gaza War" is significantly more common. Cortador (talk)

Cortador: FYI, Al Jazeera has switched and is calling it "Israel-Gaza war" on its banner and front page, while the BBC has been using it for a while. Iskandar323 (talk) 12:22, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

No, they haven't. That one article may use the term "Israel-Gaza War", but the news category says "Israel-Hamas War" right there. Cortador (talk) 07:29, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose per WP:COMMONNAME. A few outlets referring to it differently are insufficient to overrule the majority. Captain Jack Sparrow (talk) 11:17, 17 October 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose. The war is blatantly between Israel and Hamas. Gaza is only involved because that's Hamas's base of operations. Gaza is not a state which is at war with Israel. -- Necrothesp (talk) 12:47, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

  @Necrothesp: Neither is Hamas a state. Nor is it alone in this fight. Iskandar323 (talk) 13:01, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

  I didn't say it was a state. But it is an organisation that is clearly at war with Israel. Gaza is not. Gaza has merely been dragged into the conflict by its rulers whether it likes it or not. Gaza has not attacked Israel and Israel's stated policy is only to fight Hamas, not Gaza. Which is why the WP:COMMONNAME is the current title. -- Necrothesp (talk) 13:07, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose WP:COMMONNAME and also a bit of WP:NPOV. I believe the current title is most descriptive and neutral. Flalf^Talk 13:04, 17 October 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose Israel is listed as a belligerent in the conflict, Gaza is not. - RockinJack18 15:34, 17 October 2023 (UTC)
• Support per rationale of Iskandar323 and Nableezy, and multiple supporting commenters above. A. Randomdude0000 (talk) 16:44, 17 October 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose. Current title is clear, supported by sources. It seems to me that even if the terms are used at a roughly even rate in the high-quality sources, the current title is the most specific. Neutrality^talk 19:47, 17 October 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose I would not expect to find the article at Israel-Gaza because the Gaza Strip is not governed by a group named "Gaza". PuppyMonkey (talk) 20:15, 17 October 2023 (UTC)
• Support For same reasons as other supporters above, especially because the entire population of Gaza is undergoing that. Sinucep (talk) 22:00, 17 October 2023 (UTC)
• Support. Since no one common name appears to have become overwhelmingly established (prominent reliable sources using either construction), we defer to WP:NCEVENTS—specifically WP:NCWWW (In the majority of cases, the title of the article should contain the following three descriptors: When the incident happened.[2023] Where the incident happened.[Gaza and Israel (alphabetically)] What happened.[war])—as well as WP:MILNAME (If there is no common name, the name should be a descriptive geographic term such as "battle of X").

The main geographic areas involved are also uncontrovertible. It is generally agreed that there was an incursion by militants into Israel and IDF forces are responding in Gaza in kind.

Whereas, names of belligerents are less helpful in article titles for conflicts due to their number (there are SIX militant groups fighting on one side in this war), any uncertainty of responsibility (which may develop) and ontological difficulties (e.g. Israel, IDF and Shin Bett, Netanyahu, the Netanyahu/Israeli government).

Llew Mawr (talk) 22:57, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose AP, ABC, CBS, CNN, and NYT call it Israel-Hamas war. I know BBC and WP are using Gaza-Israel war, but more reliable sources are using the other. Unless this changes I say stick with the current title. However, as a compromise what about the opening section say Israel-Hamas War or/also called the Gaza-Israel War?3Kingdoms (talk) 00:37, 18 October 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose—Almost all sources I find refer to it as the "Israel-Hamas" conflict or some variant thereof, despite what is described above. A Google search validates my point. Nikolaih^☎️📖 00:44, 18 October 2023 (UTC)
• Support Most news media channels call it the Israel-Gaza War. The belligerents not only involve the Hamas but also many other terrorist organisations. Also those saying why shouldn't it be Israel-Palestine War, its because similar to how you call a war fought by the ROC as XYZ-Taiwan not XYZ-China War as ROC only controls Taiwan, Hamas only controls Gaza, not entire Palestine, besides most countries doesn't recognise Hamas as the official Palestinian authority. PadFoot2008 (talk) 01:13, 18 October 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose War is not just being fought in the Gaza Strip GRALISTAIR (talk) 01:50, 18 October 2023 (UTC)
• Support per convincing arguments made by other supporters as this seems to be increasingly a war against Gaza, not just Hamas. OpenScience709 (talk) 12:29, 18 October 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose, please note that Israel and Hamas are the main warring parties. It would be inaccurate to call the war Israel-Gaza war since Hamas and its allies have operated against Israel from regions outside of Gaza (specifically Lebanon).

  Furthermore, Israel is not at war with the Palestinian Authority. Both Israel and the PA have not declared war against each other. Israel clearly stated its fight is against Hamas and not against the PA. Since the population of Gaza is represented in international forums by the PA and since the PA is considered the legal representative of the Palestinian people; I concur that the name ought to remain Israel-Hamas war. Homerethegreat (talk) 13:02, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

  Pretty odd claim that Gaza is represented by the PA. Hamas resoundingly won the popular vote in Gaza in the 2006 election. The Fatah-led PA has little to no voice in the territory these days. Iskandar323 (talk) 13:23, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

  Legally Gaza belongs to the State of Palestine represented by the PA. Now of course the de-facto reality is very different, but the point is the international community recognizes Gaza as belonging to the PA government in the West Bank. 3Kingdoms (talk) 14:41, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

  This is a duplicate vote; I have struck the vote but not the comment. Levivich (talk) 15:28, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

• Strongly oppose AP, ABC, CBS, CNN, and NYT call it Israel-Hamas and most major sources use this term. Additionally, "Gaza-Israel war" is inaccurate since Gaza (part of the Palestinian Authority, de jure) is a territory and not an entity. The war is taking place in Gaza, but Gaza is not a combatant, so the nomenclature doesn't make sense. There is no "Gaza army". Eccekevin (talk) 16:45, 18 October 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose, and suggest speedy close This is a snow close because this issue has already been discussed extensively and decided. A decision was made largely on the basis of WP:COMMONNAME. As others have pointed out and as the last discussion pointed out, the current title is more frequently used. If an administrator was to overrule the prior decision despite insufficient material change in circumstances, the precedent this would be setting is that any editor who disagrees with a move decision should simply re-suggest the change a week later. Especially for a topic like this one where the same argument can cycle endlessly without finality of decisions, this would be a harmful precedent to set. Please snow close. Flip^andFlopped ツ 17:44, 18 October 2023 (UTC)
• Note That by my tally the current vote total is 42 in opposition to 31 in support. Feel free to correct if I am slightly off. Flip^andFlopped ツ 17:54, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

  isn't that supposed to be enough votes? Abo Yemen✉ 18:35, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

  Requested moves are not votes and generally stay open for at least seven days unless there is an overwhelming consensus. Elli (talk | contribs) 20:04, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

  ohhhh okay now it makes sense Abo Yemen✉ 17:01, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

• Support -- Abbasi786786 (talk) 22:56, 18 October 2023 (UTC)
• Support - The Palestinian Islamic Jihad is a major faction which also participated in the invasion of Israel (as well as the PFLP), and even took 30+ israeli soldiers/civilians captive. RamHez (talk) 05:55, 19 October 2023 (UTC)
• Support as per Iskandar323 comments. WikiEditor1234567123 (talk) 10:15, 19 October 2023 (UTC)
• Support - Hamas is not the sole anti-Israel participant of this conflict. Ratipok (talk) 12:42, 19 October 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose most of the media reporting is this is a conflict between Israel and Hamas. I would support if the overwhelming number of sources name it between Israel and Gaza despite my personal beliefs because Wikipedia is about what reliable sources say not what I think or believe. Most support votes are trying push something that that is presented as fact, there are more than just Hamas participants, but again, Wikipedia isn't about known facts per se, it is about what reliable sources say about a subject. Everything else is simply WP:OR. --ARoseWolf 12:58, 19 October 2023 (UTC)
• Support - “Hamas-Israel” is like saying “Nazi-Allied War”. Neutrality requires we call wars by their geographic names, not by the names of their leading parties, unless you want to refer to the 1861 war as “Republican-Slavers War” (the Civil War, when the Republican Party of Abraham Lincoln in the North defeated the South that wanted slavery). This is a war between Israel and Gaza. XavierItzm (talk) 14:46, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

  "Neutrality requires we call wars by their geographic names" is easily disproven. The most obvious example, of course, is 1948 Arab–Israeli War, but other examples include French and Indian War (not fought in India!), Ashanti–Fante War, Spanish–Taíno War of San Juan–Borikén, Trịnh–Nguyễn War, Savoyard–Waldensian wars,Volta-Bani War, Zhili–Anhui War, First Zhili–Fengtian War, and Second Zhili–Fengtian War, among others. Levivich (talk) 16:12, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

  Ha ha! Guy actually said the French and Indian war, fought between the Indians and the French, was not fought in India. So enlightening! (and utterly irrelevant to this thread).
  Seriously now, the 1948 Arab–Israeli War is not named for the government parties (“Nazi-Allied War”, “Republican-Slavers War”, or indeed "Hamas-Israel War”-style) but for the belligerents: the Arabs vs the Israelies.
  Likewise the Ashanti–Fante War, Spanish–Taíno War of San Juan–Borikén, Volta-Bani War, Zhili–Anhui War, First Zhili–Fengtian War, and Second Zhili–Fengtian War: zero of those examples use the name of a government party as an article title, which would be ridiculous. XavierItzm (talk) 02:00, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

  At the strictest definition of "government party", there are a few examples such as the Mau Mau rebellion.

  Once we get a little looser with the definition - and I think it is reasonable to do so we have examples like Muslim–Quraysh War and First_Jewish–Roman_War - not to mention the dozens of wars that have the name of Chinese dynasty (functionally equivalent to a political party) in it. This title isn't unprecedented - and even if it was, the fact that it is used by reliable sources allows it to be precedent-setting. BilledMammal (talk) 05:15, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

  There are dozens of wars named after various Chinese dynasty's. We then have First Jewish–Roman War,

  Mau Mau rebellion is not an appropriate comparator: that’s the description of a party which revolted against an established government, not a war between geographic entities, like the Gaza-Israel war.
  And the First_Jewish–Roman_War is aptly named: a religious group within Judæa which revolted against the established government. Observe that the Christians of Jerusalem, not being part of the insurrection, escaped to Pella and so have their very own Wiki article! The war, therefore, was not a Roman-Judean war at all, but a Jewish-Roman war proper.
  In sum, relevant examples are the Nazi-USA war and the Republican Party vs. Confederate States of America war, which are incorrect names because political parties are not international belligerents, and so we instead say, as we must, Germany vs Allies war, and USA vs Confederate war. XavierItzm (talk) 05:59, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

  The Republican Party did not have its own army and was the internationally recognized leader of the United States. Hamas is not. 3Kingdoms (talk) 15:44, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose per Flipandflopped. Jon Ace ^{T C} 16:59, 19 October 2023 (UTC)
• Strongly support Whatever the future name might be, I am strongly disturbed from the actual article's name – normally we would name the war's initiator on first position. As I know it was not Israel who started the war. Matthiasb (talk) 17:11, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

  Not true. All wars between India and Pakistan are called "India Pakistan war of <insert year of war>", though most were begun by Pakistan. Captain Jack Sparrow (talk) 18:10, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

  Not only that, but it's odd to support a move to "Gaza-Israel War" on the grounds of "normally we would name the war's initiator on first position," because by that logic, "Gaza-Israel War" would imply that Gaza started this war. I take it, though, based on this reasoning, that Matthiasb opposes "Israel-Gaza War" for the same reason as "Israel-Hamas War." Levivich (talk) 18:31, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose per WP:COMMONNAME. Hamas is a better pick for the name as the commenters above have said. Swordman97 ^{talk to me} 18:58, 19 October 2023 (UTC)
• Support. In addition to what IndianWikiFreak noted above (Hamas is de facto the government of Gaza), the Israelis are fighting a lot of militant organizations in the de facto independent enclave besides Hamas like Islamic Jihad. This title seems more accurate and intuitive on top of fitting the rest of our articles in the so-called "Gaza-Israel conflict."--Nihlus1 (talk) 19:46, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

  Just noting I removed IndianWikiFreak's vote and comment per WP:ARBECR. Levivich (talk) 15:30, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose: Unfortunately, I think that this discussion may actually be a bit premature. The majority of current sources out of the United States continuously use Israel-Hamas War per the AP Stylebook which guides the majority of major news organizations within the United States to maintain uniformity in reporting. Other editors here have argued that, logically, Hamas and other military factions are fighting against Israel. While true, Hamas is clearly the major military force in the conflict and is the easiest for readers to recognize alongside the current media reports. The Gaza Strip is also considered controlled by Israel by many world governments and organizations. I would also posit that it wouldn't be fair or prudent to label the conflict the Israel-Gaza War at this juncture and in these constantly changing circumstances. Scorch (talk | ctrb) 00:46, 20 October 2023 (UTC)
• Support. regardless of how it started, Israel has been bombing Gaza and is preparing to invade it. M.Bitton (talk) 00:55, 20 October 2023 (UTC)
• Support. Parallel and superior to the current construction which had me expecting it should read 2023 Likud–Hamas war — RVJ (talk) 04:43, 20 October 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose: per WP:COMMONNAME most (if not all) reliable sources call this worse between Hamas and Israel. Hamas is operating outside of Gaza as well so it would be incorrect according to RS. Grahaml35 (talk) 04:55, 20 October 2023 (UTC)
• Support as the current title is simply not NPOV. Allegedly all previous IDF bombing sessions in Gaza were just to fight Hamas, and yet: Gaza War (2008–2009), 2014 Gaza war etc. etc. See no reason why this one should be any different. – filelakeshoe (t / c) 🐱 07:46, 20 October 2023 (UTC)
• Support per rationale of Iskandar323 and Nableezy. Lightburst (talk) 17:34, 20 October 2023 (UTC)
• Support There are enough reliable sources for the proposed title, making it a common name per WP:COMMONNAME. The proposed title is also WP:CONSISTENT with Israel-Gaza conflict. --Mhhossein ^talk 18:28, 20 October 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose. The current title meets WP:COMMONNAME. It is too soon to change the name based on what may or may not be happening with other groups/geographies.
• Strong Support Israel-Hamas has been a biased title for a while now, as it's obvious that Israel's initiatives involved more than just taking out Hamas. Jingle38 (talk) 21:54, 20 October 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose The war isn't solely taking place in Gaza... It would be incorrect to rename a page to something that is not accurate. Israel is bombing Gaza, but there's also fighting on the Israel/Lebanon border, and in the West Bank. —  dainomite   23:43, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

  By that logic Hamas is inaccurate. nableezy - 23:45, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

  You are correct. I also didn't say the current name was accurate. However we're here to discuss moving it to 2023 Gaza–Israel war. —  dainomite   02:02, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose per WP:COMMONNAME. Although I personally prefer "2023 Gaza–Israel war", policies dictate that Wikipedia should use the name most commonly used by independent English-language RS in their most recent articles. While a handful of sources use both "Israel-Hamas" and "Israel-Gaza", it is clear that "Israel-Hamas" wins out by far. Arguments involving the contexts and details of this event are not relevant.

Israel-Hamas: CNBC, CNN, Associated Press, Sky News, Axios, The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, The New York Times, NBC News, CBS News, KPBS, Al-Jazeera, Council on Foreign Relations, Bloomberg, European Council on Foreign Relations, BBC, Foreign Policy, Center for Strategic & International Studies, Politico, Financial Times, Hindustan Times, The Economic Times, The Hindu, Time Magazine, Le Monde, CBC, Reuters, Euronews, Vox, Deutsche Welle, New York Magazine, NPR, Chatham House, Los Angeles Times, USA Today, ABC News, Yahoo! News, The Times of Israel, The Economist, The Hill, Haaretz, Boston Globe

Israel-Gaza: Al-Jazeera, Washington Post, BBC News, The Independent, The New York Times, CNN, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, South China Morning Post, ABC (Australia), Reuters, Sky News, Forward, Al-Arabiya, The Times

StellarHalo (talk) 10:04, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

Commenting that the names of the main sections covering this conflict on The New York Times and Reuters seem to call it “Israel-Hamas War” and

“Israel and Hamas at War”. Justanotherguy54 (talk) 02:24, 22 October 2023 (UTC)

I wonder if the selection being mostly Western affects the balance. Middle East Eye referred to it as the "Israel-Gaza war" before switching to the "Israel-Palestine war" to include atrocities in the West Bank, a move also partly done by Al-Jazeera. Doctors Without Borders, Al-Arabiya, Zawya, the Kuwait Times, and The Daily Tribune of Bahrain refer to it as the "Israel-Gaza war."

Some of the sources you cited for using "Israel-Hamas" seem to also use "Israel-Gaza," upon a quick search, as well (e.g., Foreign Policy, New York Times, CNN, AP).

Either way, we should go with the name that is more common rather than the one we may think is more correct. 4kbw9Df3Tw (talk) 02:40, 22 October 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose A review of all of the justifications from both sides shows two trends. Those who support the change feels that the proposed title is more appropriate - based mostly their own opinion. Those who oppose the change reviewed the reliable sources on this issue and shows that the current title is in greater usage amongst the reliable sources on this topic, as compared to the alternative title. In my view, those who oppose the change has the better argument, one that draws stronger support from wiki policies and hence, my "oppose" vote. HollerithPunchCard (talk) 16:46, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose per AP Stylebook (via undecisive WaPo piece): "For the time being, it can be called the latest war between Israel and Hamas, the latest Israel-Hamas war or simply the Israel-Hamas war if the context makes clear that the reference is not to a previous war. Do not use terms such as Israel-Palestinian war or Gaza war. ... A formal name ... as of now does not exist." Hameltion (talk | contribs) 18:10, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose Don’t have much to add beyond what all other oppose votes have stated. Agree with the 4(and more) directly above me, especially Hameltion.

Justanotherguy54 (talk) 02:16, 22 October 2023 (UTC)

• Support, and strongly at that. More neutral in my view. There are good sources supporting both arguments (mine is BBC) but Israel is currently attacking Gaza. That is what is happening now. It would be weird and politically one sided if we said Russian was attacking Zelenskyy's army, or the war in Afghanistan was not that but was the war against the Taliban. It is fundamental wikipedia try to remain neutral in my view. Yours ever, --Czar Brodie (talk) 05:51, 22 October 2023 (UTC)

  It would be weird and politically one sided if we said Russian was attacking Zelenskyy's army I think it is important to note that Hamas is Russia in this situation; they attacked Israel and committed horrific crimes, and now Israel is responding to ensure that such an event can never happen again. This leads me to my main point; Gaza didn't attack Israel, Hamas did - and further Israel isn't targetting Gaza, it's targetting Hamas. BilledMammal (talk) 06:44, 22 October 2023 (UTC)

  @BilledMammal Maybe, maybe not, Israel looks to me like it is attacking Gaza, looking for the culprits, but never the less attacking the city. we could argue all day if Hamas is the military division of Gaza, or who commits more crimes in a war, but all I am arguing is for neutrality, not of us but for Wikipedia. Your rebuttal made me think you were not neutral in this, hell who isn't, is is a war, and has violence that is difficult to comprehend or not condemn. But Wikipedia should be a cold reference in my view. I think that is important. Czar Brodie (talk) 07:08, 22 October 2023 (UTC)

  @Czar Brodie On this same logic, is "Gaza-Israel" really neutral either? A critic might say that framing the conflict over a specific piece of land erases the political and ethnic dimensions of the conflict. That calling it a war between Gaza and Israel frames it as a war over a small strip of land, as opposed to an ethnically motivated, nationalistic war against a people (that is, Israel seeking to ethnically cleanse Palestinians everywhere including in the West Bank, or from the other perspective, Hamas seeking to eliminate Israelis everywhere).

  I am not trying to argue about whether either of the above characterizations is "correct" or not. My point is, there will always be a dispute that a title of this kind is either over-inclusive or under-inclusive, or that it is named in a leading way. That's why we need to go with the most commonly used name; that's the whole point of the common name policy. -- Flip^andFlopped ツ 17:34, 22 October 2023 (UTC)

  @Flipandflopped interesting points and on on some level you have a point. Of course true neutrality is is probably impossible, but in my view though we should strive for it. Curiously I come to different conclusions from your argument; by stripping the political and ethnic dimensions of the conflict (in the title) is a neutral approach in my view. Most aggressors and defenders in a conflict claim the conflict is morally justified on grounds that they are not attacking/defending against the citizens but some part of the regime. i.e. Putin claims he is liberating Ukraine from the fascist Zelenskyy government, Ukraine probablyclaime it is Putin invading anf not the Russian people. America claimed it was in Afghanistan to liberate the people from the Taliban it was not attacking Afghanistan etc. There may or may not be truth in these allegations, I'm sure there are many sources that argue the points one way or another. But it would be silly in my view to determine the truth by the number of sources. We have sources that are good that point both ways. So the best path is a neutral one in my view. So strip the political and ethnic dimensions of the conflict or any other issues/reasons and just refer to the nations involved. The title is important in my view, it dictates the view of the article, so I think it is paramount the title is neutral. Yours ever, Czar Brodie (talk) 18:53, 22 October 2023 (UTC)

  Agree largely with Flipandflopped. While I have no reason to doubt your good faith Czar Brodie, there should be no illusion at this stage that one title is more neutral than the other. There are important ramifications on perception, and effects on narrative, regardless of whether you adopt the title "Hamas vs Israel" or "Gaza vs Israel".

  Adopting the former title is consistent with the perception of the war as a response to Hamas terrorism. Adopting the latter title tends to support the narrative of Israel as an invader against Gaza; the war as a struggle for land and national identity. Most interested editors probably know the pivotal effect of this title on narrative, hence the intense controversy and activity in this discussion.

  That's why we should stick to Wiki policies. WP:COMMONNAME provides clear guidance on this topic. The preferred name is one that is more commonly used by reliable sources. What's required is a simple comparison of the frequency of use. This exercise favours maintaining the current title. Crude, blunt - yes - but for this reason, it is objective and it works. HollerithPunchCard (talk) 02:26, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

  @HollerithPunchCard "While I have no reason to doubt your good faith" really? I feel insulted and will politely leave this discussion so as to not be to antagonised. Thanks for taking the time to study and consider my arguments. Yours ever, Czar Brodie (talk) 04:05, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

  Czar Brodie When I wrote "while I have no reason to doubt your good faith", I meant that I do not doubt your good faith as I have no reason to do so. If you insulted by this phrase, then respectfully, I think you misread it. Thank you for your civility. HollerithPunchCard (talk) 12:21, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

  @HollerithPunchCard, I did not misread it; I note you are legally minded, so you know perfectly well what "while I have no reason to doubt your good faith" actually means, but thanks for that. I felt more a more challenged and as I felt insulted I just decide to back off otherwise this discussion will start obsessing me and affecting me in the real world. Yours ever, fellow chess player, Czar Brodie (talk) 14:18, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

  @HollerithPunchCard On an amusing note, if you really do not know what is meant by "while I have no reason to doubt your good faith", and if you are a trial lawyer, try telling that to a judge - the judges reaction will give you an indication of mine. Yours ever, Czar Brodie (talk) 15:18, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose, per WP:COMMONNAME, per BilledMammal and others. While I am sympathetic to the argument that de facto, it is Gaza generally, not Hamas and its allies that is on the receiving end of the 'punishment' at present, it is not Gaza that attacked Israel, nor is Gaza in any real sense an 'active' participant in this present conflict. I'm afraid I find the "Israel isn't targetting Gaza" arguments absurd, the practical difference of outcome is zero. You can't bomb or shell only the Hamas members in a building, nor know who is in it when you attack it. The 'specific' and NPOV arguments cut both ways IMO, but Israel is listed as a belligerent in the conflict, Gaza is not. I think those readers who wish to do so will understand that Gazan civilians, not Hamas members are going to be the main victims of the current phase of the conflict, however we name the article. Pincrete (talk) 07:34, 22 October 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose per most of the reasoning given by users above. If it or a different name actually becomes the common name in the near future we can update it at that time. BogLogs (talk) 12:34, 22 October 2023 (UTC)
• Support - (1) Those citing COMMONNAME for calling this war "Israel–Hamas war" have forgotten that COMMONNAME is not the only criteria for naming articles. The proper naming convention is WP:NCWWW. The naming convention requires the use of "When the incident happened. Where the incident happened. What happened." HAMAS is not "Where the incident happened." Hamas is not a place. The place is Gaza. (2) Outside of the naming convention for events, the most relevant naming convention is WP:CRITERIA, which calls for "Recognizability", "Naturalness", "Precision", "Concision", AND "Consistency". The title "2023 Israel–Hamas war" lacks CONSISTENCY. It would be perhaps the only title of an article about a war that hyphenates a state entity with an organization or faction. This title is inconsistent with all the following articles, many of which were also mostly conflicts with Hamas, or another single resistance group such as Palestinian Islamic Jihad, or sometimes a group of organizations, including Hamas. Nonetheless, the articles are titled after Gaza:
  1. Gaza–Israel conflict
  2. 2006 Gaza–Israel conflict
  3. March 2010 Israel–Gaza clashes
  4. March 2012 Gaza–Israel clashes
  5. 2014 Gaza War
     1. Media coverage of the 2014 Israel–Gaza conflict
     2. International reactions to the 2014 Gaza War
     3. Timeline of the 2014 Gaza War
  6. 2018–2019 Gaza border protests
  7. November 2018 Gaza–Israel clashes
  8. May 2019 Gaza–Israel clashes
  9. November 2019 Gaza–Israel clashes
  10. 2022 Gaza–Israel clashes
  11. May 2023 Gaza–Israel clashes

For consistency and because the appeals to COMMONNAME are not in keeping with our conventions for titles of events this soon after the beginning of the event, the page should be retitled 2023 Gaza–Israel war. --- C&C (Coffeeandcrumbs) 13:08, 22 October 2023 (UTC)

Comment @Coffeeandcrumbs Having made this policy argument five days ago, I note that no one has argued why WP:IAR applies here or otherwise made a counterargument supporting the status quo. In fact, almost no one on either side has referenced policy at all.

Llew Mawr (talk) 17:56, 22 October 2023 (UTC)

Respectfully disagree for two reasons.

One, WP:NCWWW clearly stipulates when this naming convention should be applied in the following terms: "If there is an established, common name for an event (such as the Great Depression, Cuban Missile Crisis or a "Bloody Sunday"), use that name. In the majority of cases, the title of the article should contain the following three descriptors [...]

In another words, WP:COMMONNAME applies in priority to WP:NCWWW. Especially when there is an established common name to this topic. Here, Hamas-Israel War is an established common name, so is Gaza-Israel War, though to a lesser degree. Your proposed name can only be considered if there's no established common name, but there are.

Second, even applying WP:NCWWW as you proposed (which I disagree with), the current title adequately satisfies this convention. The title "2023 Israel–Hamas war" addresses when, where and what. The title tells you that there is a war. It took place in 2023. And at least part of it took place in Israel, consistent with the following introduction in the lede:

"The ongoing armed conflict between Palestinian militant groups led by Hamasand Israel began on 7 October 2023 with a coordinated surprise offensive on Israel." HollerithPunchCard (talk) 02:45, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

No names here are established names; we're two weeks in - we're far from knowing what this conflict will be called in the history books. This is all still just news at the moment, and Wikipedia is WP:NOTNEWS, which is one of the reasons why following our guidelines might be wise here. Iskandar323 (talk) 04:11, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

Thank you Iskandar, but if you look the number of sources using the current title, summarized by some of the editors above in this discussion - it's pretty well established to me. Some names are given by historians decades after the fact, some names gain vogue overnight.

There's nothing requiring a name to be adopted in the history books, for that name to be established. For practical purposes, you'll be denying Wikipedia's ability to name an event using WP:COMMONNAME, while that event has yet to become history. HollerithPunchCard (talk) 12:33, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

In addition to what HollerithPunchCard has said, another applicable guideline for this is Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Military history which says that "An article should generally be placed at the most common name used to refer to the event". So, WP:COMMONNAME really takes precedent here as it should since Wikipedia's goal is to document what reliable sources say on a topic rather than leaving it up to users to decide which events and subject matters are similar to one another based on original research. StellarHalo (talk) 20:16, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose. While I understand the consistency argument, Israel has made it clear this war is against Hamas. I would go with what a majority of our WP:RS are calling it. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 17:54, 22 October 2023 (UTC)

  Isn't this an admission that we're going along with a POV framing defined by one party to the conflict? Sort of like if you agreed that the Ukraine war was a 'special military operation' ... Iskandar323 (talk) 04:15, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

  Or if one followed Putin at his initial word - that this was just an operation to oust Nazis from Ukraine, so a Nazi-Russia war ... Which would also be daft, just as the title here is daft as a description of the wholesale onslaught of Gaza at this point. Iskandar323 (talk) 04:46, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose This is a war between the Republic of Israel, WP:COMMONNAME Israel, and the Islamic Resistance Movement, WP:COMMONNAME Hamas. Thus, Israel-Hamas War. TheAwesomeAtom (talk) 23:40, 22 October 2023 (UTC)

• Support Firstly, WP:COMMONNAME doesn't even apply, as reliable sources are not in consensus. Secondly, it is also not the only policy that applies here. WP:CONSISTENCY, all other articles about the conflict use Gaza, not Hamas; WP:NPOV and just straight-up accuracy, there are other parties in the conflict (albeit Hamas and the IDF are the main ones), plus Israel is fully invading Gaza. BappleBusiness^[talk] 20:57, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

  @Bapplebusiness First of all, I disagree that all sources are not in consensus. All of the most reputable sources use "Israel-Hamas" exclusively or predominantly and that has been demonstrated repeatedly, both above and in the prior discussion on this issue which preceded this one.

  Second, PIJ and Hezbollah, while technically involved, are not main parties to the conflict. Deeming them sufficiently important such that the article's name should be changed is reflects POV. If they become so involved that reputable sources began adjusting the name of the conflict to reflect that, then it is NPOV.

  Analogy: would we change the name to "2022 Invasion of Ukraine" because Belarus was technically involved, and it's therefore inaccurate to call the invasion just "Russian"? No, because that would be a conscious POV choice which goes aside from the standard used by our sources.

  Third, as for the consistency argument, I am much more sympathetic to this. But a POV underpinning of this argument, even if it is a strong argument, is that there is continuity between this war and prior conflict in Gaza. Connecting this war to pasts conflict in Gaza as part of a sequential chronology of names, as opposed to a retaliatory war by Israel specifically to a Hamas attack, is again, a departure from NPOV. I say that as someone sharply critical of the current ground invasion. Flip^andFlopped ツ 21:33, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

  All of the most reputable sources use "Israel-Hamas" exclusively or predominantly and that has been demonstrated repeatedly is just not true and that has been demonstrated. BBC, Washington Post, among others. nableezy - 21:45, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

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.

"Per the Gaza Health Ministry"

The Gaza Health Ministry is not an independent health organization or any kind of legitimate government branch. It's essentially just an office of Hamas, staffed by Hamas members (including its head). Our own page lists "Hamas authority" as its "parent agency." I feel like sourcing estimates from the Gaza Health Ministry in the infobox misleads people who don't know this (most Wikipedia readers are just looking for a general overview and are unlikely to go down source rabbit holes). Why the lair of obfuscation instead of being direct? Why not simply state "X killed [Hamas claim]" like so many other articles do concerning claims made by militant groups?--Nihlus1 (talk) 22:49, 22 October 2023 (UTC)

Sure. Can't really trust anyone and most things should be attributed. If we believed in combatants and politicians, wed think we are winning in Vietnam. O3000, Ret. (talk) 23:09, 22 October 2023 (UTC)

Of course Hamas is the authority, Hamas is the government of Gaza, of course Gazan ministries are subordinate to that like in literally any other place on the planet. We say it is the Ministry of Health number, we specify which ministry is saying what between Gaza and the West Bank. But why not just say "Hamas claim"? Because the sources dont do that. They report it as the number of deaths per the Ministry of Health. They dont cast doubt based on personal feeling with words like "claim", they simply say this is the number and this is who provided it. So do we. nableezy - 23:37, 22 October 2023 (UTC)

The Times of Israel uses the nomenclature "the Hamas-run health ministry", not to put too fine a point on it. Specificity matters, but it doesn't have to be spelled out every single time as far as we're concerned. kencf0618 (talk) 01:56, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

Also recent AP attribute numbers : More than 4,100 people have been killed in Gaza, according to the Health Ministry run by Hamas. That includes a disputed number of people who died in a hospital explosion earlier this week. Infinity Knight (talk) 08:45, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

Clarity is helpful, and is supported by the sources; I would agree with using something like "the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry". I think it's important here, because the exact status of the health ministry in Gaza may be unclear to readers while that would not be the case in a regular country. BilledMammal (talk) 08:50, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

I wouldn't oppose such a clarification. It appears to be unbiased and in accordance with the terminology used by reputable sources. Infinity Knight (talk) 08:57, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

In the BBC’s reporting, they make it abundantly clear that the ministry is controlled by Hamas. BilledMammal (talk) 12:37, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

and in the newsbite immediately below, it says "We've had an update from the Palestinian health ministry in Gaza,..." Selfstudier (talk) 12:43, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

You should read the third paragraph of that same newsbite, which says As a reminder, the health ministry, like other government agencies in the Gaza Strip, is controlled by Hamas. BilledMammal (talk) 12:55, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

I would go along with "Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza" if it can be demonstrated that such qualifiers are consistently and widely used in news articles. OCHA in their flash reports simply say "According to the MoH in Gaza" and "Israeli official sources". Selfstudier (talk) 13:11, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

It is not, Washington Post: Gaza’s Health Ministry said Monday that the number of people killed in the enclave climbed by 436 in the past day, increasing the toll since the war began to 5,087. According to the update, the majority of the latest fatalities were in southern Gaza, where Israel previously urged more than a million Palestinians to flee to escape the brunt of its airstrikes.

Al-Jazeera: About 40 percent of the 5,087 people killed are children, Gaza’s Ministry of Health said on Monday, the day when Israel’s army said it carried out more than 300 new air attacks within 24 hours. Palestinian officials said more than 400 people were killed in that period.

UN: Latest media reports citing the Gaza Ministry of Health indicate that the number of people killed in Gaza since 7 October has risen to 5,087.

Euronews At least 4,385 Palestinians have been killed in the Gaza Strip since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas on 7 October, the territory's Health Ministry has announced.

Reuters: The death toll in Gaza rose to 4,385 dead with 13,651 injured since the conflict between Hamas and Israel escalated on Oct. 7, the Palestinian health ministry said. ... The dead include 1,756 children and 976 women, the health ministry added.

The National (UAE): More than 5,000 Palestinians have been confirmed killed in Gaza, the enclave’s Health Ministry has said.

Obviously Hamas runs the government ministries in Gaza, but we dont say the Likud government in Israel, or the Shas run Health Ministry, we only do these things for one side here. nableezy - 13:32, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

Washington Post:

1. ...killing hundreds of people, the Hamas-run Health Ministry said.
2. The Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza says over 4,300 Palestinians have been killed.
3. Five hospitals have stopped functioning because of fuel shortages and bombing damage, the Hamas-run Health Ministry said.

Euronews:

1. 4,385 Palestinians killed since the start of the war - Hamas Health Ministry (This article is actually the same one you shared)
2. The Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza says an Israeli airstrike caused the blast...
3. The Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry said Friday that 4,137 Palestinians have been killed and more than 13,000 others wounded.

Reuters:

1. ...the Hamas-run government's health ministry said 16 were killed.
2. The Hamas-run government's health ministry said in a statement that 16 Palestinian Christians were killed in the incident.
3. Some 4,650 Palestinians have been killed in the bombardment according to the Hamas-run health authorities in the enclave...

The National (UAE)

1. Children have borne the brunt of Israel's intense bombardment, comprising 40 per cent of more than 4,600 people killed, according to the Hamas-run ministry.
2. "...so far received 232 martyrs and 1,697 people with various injuries from the Israeli aggression," the Hamas-run ministry said in a statement.
3. About 5,000 Palestinians, mainly civilians, have been killed in Gaza during Israeli bombardments in retaliation for the Hamas attacks on October 7, the Hamas-run Health Ministry said.

Even most of the sources you presented usually clarify that the Health Ministry is run by Hamas; the only two that don't do so, as far as I can tell, are Al Jazeera (I could only find one source for them), and the UN. Two exceptions don't justify omitting this information, particularly not when the exceptions are those two - Al Jazeera is far from the least biased agency in this topic area, and reports from a supranational entity like the EU or the UN should be treated no differently to reports from a national entity like the US, Israel, or Saudi Arabia. BilledMammal (talk) 13:57, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

Uh we dont omit anything. The footnote says Hamas run Health Ministry. Euronews is not an EU platform, its just based in Brussels. The question was if it is consistently used, and it is not. nableezy - 14:16, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

The question was if it is consistently used, and it is not. I assume you are using the "always" definition of "consistently"; that definition isn't very useful here, when something doesn't have to be mentioned every time for us to need to mention it under WP:DUE.

The evidence I have presented shows that it is used enough for us to mention it - and mention it prominently, rather than hiding it away in a footnote.

Euronews is not an EU platform, its just based in Brussels I didn't say it was? BilledMammal (talk) 14:24, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

I suggest waiting for a while to see whether this becomes common practice, then revisit. Selfstudier (talk) 14:20, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

It appears like it already is common practice. BilledMammal (talk) 14:24, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

It may just turn out to be an overreaction to the hospital explosion and subsequent debate over the casualty figure. Selfstudier (talk) 14:27, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

I don't think we should be trying to predict that, per WP:CRYSTAL. Plus, at the moment such a mention is WP:DUE; that may change in the future, but if it does we can always relegate such a mention back to the footnote. BilledMammal (talk) 14:34, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

I don't agree that it is DUE. Selfstudier (talk) 14:42, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

Thats nonsense, because we dont attribute anything to Israel in text in the infobox either. Hell we dont even attribute it in the footnote despite the reporting attributing it to Israel. AFP More than 1,400 people have been killed in Israel since the attack unleashed last week by Hamas militants from the blockaded Gaza Strip, the Israeli prime minister's office said Sunday. WSJ: The Health Ministry in Gaza said Tuesday that about 3,000 had been killed and more than 12,500 wounded. In Israel, the death toll from the attacks has reached at least 1,400. Some 289 Israeli soldiers died on Oct. 7 and afterward, Israeli officials have said. The sources attribute both sets of numbers to either combatant, but you want to in text attribute to one and while the other isnt even attributed in the footnote? nableezy - 15:12, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

because we dont attribute anything to Israel in text in the infobox either Yes, we do - Inside Israel (Israeli claim). If you feel more attribution is needed then I encourage you to open a discussion and we can review the sources and consider it; reviewing the sources on this question shows that we need to include this attribution. BilledMammal (talk) 15:17, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

Not for any of the Israeli casualties. Or for captives, or civilians or soldier counts. All of that is according to Israel per the sources, and we dont even say anything in the footnote for it. We already include the attribution, only for one side, including in-text in the infobox for Gaza and not for Israel is a blatant NPOV violation. nableezy - 15:29, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

WP:FALSEBALANCE; just because we need to do it for one side doesn’t mean we need to do it for the other; as I said, please open another discussion and we can review the sources. BilledMammal (talk) 15:34, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

Sure we do, especially since it is a well known fact that one side tells porkies (guess which one), assuming that is what this is all about, the desire to throw shade at one side only. Selfstudier (talk) 15:39, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

I dont know what about sources attribute both sides stats to either side you dont get. So no, there is not a false balance, and this request that we not deal with both issues here reads as an attempt to impose a double standard without looking so blatant about it. Sources attribute to both sides their stats, and we should too, the same way they do. That is not by attributing in text to Hamas in the infobox and not at all even in a footnote to Israel. nableezy - 16:52, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, they don't. When I was producing the list below a couple of the sources reported on both Israeli and Palestinian casualties in the same sentence; they attributed the Palestinian casualties but put the Israeli casualties in their own voice.

This is why we need a source evaluation; if you are convinced that reliable sources typically attribute Israeli casualties, then please open a discussion and we can review the sources. BilledMammal (talk) 23:12, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

You don't need to quote the political party in power every time you reference a ministry. In the US, you don't say the Democrat-run health ministry, and the in the UK, you don't say the Tory-run health ministry. All ministries are fundamentally run by bureaucrats. Iskandar323 (talk) 15:27, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

Unless reliable sources do so, in which case you do. Reliable sources don’t say Democrat-run health ministry or Tory-run health ministry - but they do say Hamas-run health ministry. BilledMammal (talk) 15:34, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

Yeah, this is a pretty special case, and I agree with BilledMammal on this. Andre🚐 17:02, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

We already do that, what BilledMammal is arguing for is giving greater weight to the "Hamas-run" than reliable sources do versus attributing to Israel or Israeli agencies. They attribute all statistics to both sides consistently. BilledMammal is arguing we should be doing that in-text in the infobox for only one side. Thats what you agree with? Just making sure. nableezy - 17:05, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

Got a new reference from the freshly minted Gaza Health Ministry about the whole Hamas government setup: Following the 2007 Hamas takeover of Gaza, a month-long doctors' strike ensued due to political disputes. The new Gaza government, with Basem Naim as Health Minister, replaced Fatah-affiliated hospital directors and staff with Hamas loyalists. Jomaa Alsaqqa, a 20-year surgeon at al-Shifa Hospital, lost his job due to his Fatah support and faced arrests and assaults since the Hamas takeover.

Infinity Knight (talk) 17:08, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

There a point related to this discussion in that? nableezy - 17:12, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

I agree that the RS typically refer to it as the "Hamas-run Gaza health ministry" and I think this is a unique situation, so I'm OK with referring to them as the "Hamas-run Gaza health ministry." If the sources were refer to the "Netanyahu-run Israeli health ministry," I'd support that as well. Andre🚐 17:10, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

Ok, sure, we already do that. nableezy - 17:11, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

Great. We agree, then. And as far as the infobox goes, maybe we should start a new thread @BilledMammal on the infobox change. Since we have some agreement, we could end this 34 comment thread on that note and start a fresh new thread with fresh new ideas and attitudes. Want to try it? Andre🚐 17:14, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

This thread was about adding such a note to the infobox; I don't see much benefit of starting a new one. BilledMammal (talk) 23:12, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

Going through "generally reliable" news organizations listed at WP:RSP and where I am not blocked by a paywall:

ABC news:

1. The Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza says over 4,300 Palestinians have been killed.
2. A massive blast rocked a Gaza City hospital packed with wounded and other Palestinians seeking shelter Tuesday, killing hundreds of people, the Hamas-run Health Ministry said
3. The deadliest of the five Gaza wars, it has left more than 1,400 people in Israel dead, as well as more than 4,100 Palestinians, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry.

The Age

1. The Hamas-run health ministry said at least 436 Palestinians, including 182 children, were killed in a 24-hour period, bringing the death toll in Gaza to 5087. More than 1400 Israelis were killed by Hamas terrorists on October 7.
2. A massive blast has rocked a Gaza City hospital packed with wounded and other Palestinians seeking shelter, killing hundreds, the Hamas-run Health Ministry said.
3. The Hamas-run health ministry said at least 436 Palestinians, including 182 children, were killed in a 24-hour period, bringing the death toll in Gaza to 5087.

AFP

1. More than 4,100 people have been killed in the Gaza Strip since Israel launched a ferocious air and artillery bombardment in response, according to the Hamas-controlled health ministry.
2. The Hamas-run health ministry in the crowded Palestinian enclave says more than 3,785 Palestinians have been killed in the bombing.
3. Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry said that upwards of 5,000 people have been killed, more than 2,000 of them children -- figures AFP has not been able to independently verify -- since Israel responded with a relentless bombing campaign.

Associated Press

1. The Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza says over 4,300 Palestinians have been killed.
2. A massive blast rocked a Gaza City hospital packed with wounded and other Palestinians seeking shelter Tuesday, killing hundreds of people, the Hamas-run Health Ministry said.
3. Meanwhile, Israeli airstrikes have killed more than 4,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run Health Ministry.

The Australian

1. Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry said Monday that more than 5,000 people had been killed...
2. The Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza said the explosion was caused by an Israeli air strike.
3. The bombing campaign has killed more than 4,300 Palestinians, mainly civilians, according to the Hamas-run health ministry...

Axios (Axios has only mentioned the health ministry twice in the past week; every time they have mentioned it they have included "Hamas-run")

1. ...the Hamas-run Health Ministry said killed 500 people.
2. ...which the Hamas-run Health Ministry says killed at least 500 people.

BBC

1. ...officials from the Hamas-run health ministry say the overall death toll has risen to more than 4,300 people.
2. The Hamas-run health ministry also said hundreds had been killed there in Israeli air strikes over the past day.
3. The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza says 55 more Palestinians in Gaza were killed in Israeli air strikes overnight and that more than 4,300 have been killed in total since 7 October, more than half of them women and children.

CNN

1. The Palestinian Health Ministry, which is controlled by Hamas...
2. Some 436 people, including 182 children, were killed in overnight Israeli strikes on Gaza, the Hamas-controlled Palestinian Health Ministry said in a statement.
3. The Hamas-run Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza reported that 17 people were killed in the Israeli airstrike on the church compound.

The Telegraph

1. The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza has predicted the death toll in the al Ahli hospital could rise to 800.
2. The Hamas-run health ministry said Israel’s retaliation had killed more than 4,300 Palestinians since it began.
3. At least 5,087 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli strikes since October 7th, including 2,055 children, the Hamas-run health ministry has claimed.

DW

1. More than 5,000 people have been killed in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry
2. The visit follows a blast at a Gaza hospital, which the Hamas-run health ministry said killed at least 500
3. The number of Palestinians killed in Gaza since October 7 has risen to 4,385 dead and 13,651 wounded, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry.

The only reliable news sources which did not typically use "Health Ministry" are Al Jazeera (discussed above), Bellingcat (who has only published one story mentioning the health ministry in the past month, and so there isn't enough data to say whether they typically include or exclude it)

A few sources also published no stories mentioning the health ministry in the past month; those were excluded.

Given this source review, and the source review above, I think it is clear that we cannot put casualty estimates from the Health Ministry in WikiVoice; instead, we must attribute them to Hamas. BilledMammal (talk) 23:12, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

Yes, I agree with this. Andre🚐 23:13, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

The BBC not doing that Selfstudier (talk) 23:17, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

As I said, these sources typically attribute to the Hamas-run health ministry - "always" is not required for us to need to do it. BilledMammal (talk) 23:25, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

We don't need to do it at all. However, I see that it has been done anyway. Selfstudier (talk) 23:35, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

Reverted, sources give the same level of attribution to both sides for all numbers, you are not doing that. nableezy - 23:56, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

If true, and we need to provide attribution for the Israeli casualties as well, then the NOV-compliant solution is to provide such attribution, not to to remove attribution from elsewhere.

However, you have presented no evidence of it being true, and while creating the above list I found the opposite was true - every time reliable sources reported in Israeli and Palestinian casualties in the same sentence, they attributed Palestinian but did not attribute Israeli. As such, please open a discussion and we can review the sources. BilledMammal (talk) 00:00, 24 October 2023 (UTC)

That is just not true, I presented sources up above attributing the dead or the kidnapped or the wounded to the Israeli government (eg More than 1,400 people have been killed in Israel, including children, and more than 4,500 people have been injured, Israeli officials said. At least 32 of those killed in Israel are Americans, according to the U.S. State Department. You however ignored that to say we must only discuss numbers for Gazans here, and I responded that I see that is little more than attempt to impose a double standard without being so blatant about it. We do attribute the numbers, in the text explicitly and in the infobox with an endnote. nableezy - 00:02, 24 October 2023 (UTC)

(edit conflict) You presented two sources; that isn't evidence that sources give the same level of attribution. Further, it ignores the fact that even when not looking for evidence I stumbled across several sources that in the same sentence attribute Palestinian casualties but not Israeli.

I responded that I see that is little more than attempt to impose a double standard without being so blatant about it Please WP:AGF. Discussing whether to attribute one set of numbers is complicated enough; discussing two in the same discussion will make the discussion almost impossible to follow, particularly for the uninvolved editors whose opinions are needed. Please, open a new discussion where we can produce similarly extensive lists of sources, and we can consider the question there. BilledMammal (talk) 00:16, 24 October 2023 (UTC)

I've opened a discussion on this topic at WP:NPOVN. BilledMammal (talk) 00:16, 24 October 2023 (UTC)

References

Add it as Part of Israel - Iran Proxy war

The Suprise attack of hamas on Israel on 7 October was done with the support and guidence of Iran.

Same can be said on Hizzbolla which is also an Iranian Proxy. 46.121.27.170 (talk) 00:45, 24 October 2023 (UTC)

Trimming the article's excesses

As noted above, the article could use some shortening if possible, most especially if there's anything extraneous. A good place to start would be the "Reactions" section. I've added a banner at the top of this talk page (under the "Other talk page banners" shell) which measures the length of each section in the article, and currently it shows that the "Reactions" section is quite long. At a glance, the details in the "Jewish diaspora" and "Palestinian diaspora" sub-sections are two of perhaps lesser importance. VintageVernacular (talk) 20:16, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

Sounds good. I went ahead and trimmed the Economic Impact section that added essentially nothing. Seems reasonable to axe the Diaspora reactions. I'd also add another thing to do is that in these current events articles there's a tendency to add article after article and summarize the article so it starts to read like a series of headlines. It's a pain to do but going through and trying to reduce quotes and summarize can also trim a lot of unwanted fat. Look at the Historical Context section, this should be straight forward because it can use real secondary sources instead of newspapers, but it's just a long list of quotes from random people for FIVE paragraphs. What's particularly baffling is that it's followed by a "Background" section. We could probably just delete the entire Historical Context section and anything it has worth keeping can be added to Background. Alcibiades979 (talk) 06:01, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

If the war is going to be a long one, the Russian invasion of Ukraine series of articles could serve as some inspiration for restructuring. They break the timeline up into multiple articles of their own. I'm not saying this should be done yet, but thinking ahead this may be necessary. VintageVernacular (talk) 22:56, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

Why is this still not done? The entire "Events" and "Outside main conflict zone" sections should be directly moved to the Timeline of the 2023 Israel–Hamas war article where it belongs. There's no reason to have these duplicate sections at all. And why would they even be in separate sections, if they're both lists of "events"? The "Outside main conflict zone" should have been a sub-section of "Events". GMRE (talk) 13:54, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

I like Russian invasion of Ukraine as an example. There is both a "Background" section and a "Prelude" section. Likewise, there should be a background section that contains the necessary historical context, and then a "prelude" section that contains events immediately before the war, Hamas preparations etc.VR _talk 01:30, 24 October 2023 (UTC)

Assassination of Omar Daraghmeh

Does this really need to be a standalone article? If not, where would the best redirection target be? Hemiauchenia (talk) 23:51, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

I agree that may be a stretch for a standalone article, unless it generates major coverage. Resurfacing a suggestion I made above, I think Casualties of the 2023 Israel–Hamas war would be a useful article and, in this case, a good place to mention Daraghmeh's death. In the article as is, I'm not sure we can do better than #Casualties. --Jprg1966 ^(talk) 00:44, 24 October 2023 (UTC)

I'm making Draft:Casualties of the 2023 Israel–Hamas war for anyone who wants to help. Then we can slim down the casualties section here. --Jprg1966 ^(talk) 01:51, 24 October 2023 (UTC)

Reaction: Arab world

A sentence reads: "Despite strong evidence that the cause of the explosion was a faulty Palestinian missile, many regional governments rushed to condemn Israel for fear of arousing popular anger with the truth about the rocket’s origin."

The phrase "Despite strong evidence that the cause of the explosion was a faulty Palestinian missile" is a premature conclusion. The cause of the hospital explosion is under investigation, with reports still coming out. It also reads as opinionated.

[27]https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/20/what-have-open-source-videos-revealed-about-the-gaza-hospital-explosion

[28]https://www.channel4.com/news/human-rights-investigators-raise-new-questions-on-gaza-hospital-explosion

Olgaman (talk) 23:41, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

Addressed this concern. CarmenEsparzaAmoux (talk) 23:48, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

The "Arab world" section is well worded now. My perspective is that it could be either edited down more or better referenced with additional reliable sources, since there are too many citations all from The Economist. I have an additional concern: I just noticed that yesterday an editor deleted entire sections on reactions from the "Jewish diaspora" and "Palestinian diaspora", saying in the edit summaries that it was "As per talk page" and "Per talk on trimming" respectively. There is now a section for reactions from the "Arab world" (mostly Arab Muslim world), but no section about reactions from the Jewish diaspora to balance that out. Also, Palestinian diaspora voices were removed and should be included in "Arab world" section. See edits below to compare what the sections said before they were removed: JJMM (talk) 01:47, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

• [29]https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=2023_Israel%E2%80%93Hamas_war&diff=prev&oldid=1180918637
• [30]https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=2023_Israel%E2%80%93Hamas_war&diff=prev&oldid=1180918704

Additional note: The Reactions section has the following subsections:

• Reactions in Israel
• Reactions in Gaza
• Reactions in the West Bank
• Military aid to Israel
• Arab world
• Iran
• Egypt
• International

JJMM (talk) 03:15, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

The Arab world reaction is more focused on the geopolitical relations between the countries and less so twitter statements, so I'm not really sure if it needs balancing as such simply because that's not what it's really about. Also in regards to balancing, thing is that the Article is so long at this point I can't imagine anyone reading any of this who isn't a Wiki edittor. I mean just look at the quantity of entries above the Reaction section. Beyond that wiki recommends that we focus on what would be important in 10 years time and to avoid recentism. In this regard the reactions of the diaspora communities don't seem relevant in this article. I would say that the geopolitical machinations between Iran, Israel and Saudi Arabia and how this effects those is something that has real long term impacts. The reaction of the Jewish community in Buenos Aires, less so. If anything I'd boil down the diaspora section then add the Israeli diaspora parts to the Israeli domestic reaction and the Palestinian one to the Palestinian section. Alcibiades979 (talk) 07:38, 22 October 2023 (UTC)

I understand what you are saying. Since you were the one that completely removed both the Jewish diaspora and Palestinian diaspora sections, it would be best if you made the edits you are thinking of to replace relevant text/refs, i.e.-"If anything I'd boil down the diaspora section then add the Israeli diaspora parts to the Israeli domestic reaction and the Palestinian one to the Palestinian section." JJMM (talk) 03:50, 24 October 2023 (UTC)

Also, I suggest that if you keep reactions from the Jewish diaspora that were outside Israel, that you put them in the International subsection of Reactions. JJMM (talk) 03:53, 24 October 2023 (UTC)

"Strong evidence" is a direct quote from The Economist. At this point I'd also say that "Strong evidence" is a bit of an understatement as AP, WSJ, Canada, France, CNN, the US and Israel, etc. etc. all say that it wasn't Israel. Also JJMM see here. Alcibiades979 (talk) 07:29, 22 October 2023 (UTC)

Photos Thus Far -- Balanced and Concise?

• The fighting
• Video of Gaza building being bombed

• The direct effect of the war in Israel
• 
  Blood in Israeli kibbutz
• 
  Satellite image of fires after Hamas attack
• 
  Israeli rubble #1
• 
  Body bags in Israel
• 
  Israeli rubble #2

• The direct effect of the war in Gaza
• 
  Gaza building being bombed
• Gaza rubble #1
  Gaza rubble #1
• 
  Gaza rubble #2
• 
  Gaza rubble #3
• 
  Gaza rubble #4
• 
  Palestinian wounded child #1
• 
  Palestinian wounded child #2
• 
  Palestinian bodybags
• 
  Palestinian ambulance destroyed #1
• 
  Crying Palestinian

• Israeli relief efforts
• 
  Israeli kidnapped posters
• 
  Israeli relief supplies #1

• Pro-Israel rallies and memorials
• 
  Pro-Israel memorial #1
• 
  Pro-Israel rally #1

• Pro-Palestine rallies and memorials
• 
  Pro-Palestine rally #1

• Politicians
• 
  Netanyahu #1
• Biden #1
• 
  Herzog #1
• 
  US-Saudi Arabia #1
• 
  Russia-Iran #1

These are the photos we have in the article thus far. I would say there's very little in terms of fighting and far too much redundancy when it comes to Palestinian direct effects. How many photos of rubble, wounded kids, and wrecked ambulances on one side can you have before it becomes unintentionally NPOV? Also, do we need so many photos of pro-whatever rallies and politicians? I'm dubious. What are everyone's thoughts? -- Veggies (talk) 20:24, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

I honestly had the same concern that there was some real redundancy with the photos of direct effects in Gaza. It's just difficult, because due to the electricity and internet blackout, the only images from Gaza have all come from the same day, even though the immediate and direct fighting has occurred in it for more than a week now. Definitely curious to hear others thoughts too though. CarmenEsparzaAmoux (talk) 20:51, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

Agreed. How many more photos of rubble do we need exactly? Whereas a lot of editors seemed to be against including photos of bloody kitchens/destroyed Israeli towns. That being said; there's objectively been more deaths in Gaza now. So maybe fair enough. Chuckstablers (talk) 00:43, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

Telling you all that some editor mass restored/reverted some pictures under a misleading edit summary that also wiped off info. Borgenland (talk) 17:05, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

Yeah, I just got through fixing it and I gave the user a warning. Thank you. -- Veggies (talk) 17:33, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

@Veggies I think you did a really good with trimming the photos, but I do think adding an additional one in the Healthcare section in the Humanitarian Situation would be really helpful. It's a long section (due to the sheer extent of the humanitarian "catastrophe"), but as a result, so much text with only one image is really hard on the eyes. CarmenEsparzaAmoux (talk) 00:43, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

Updated the photos above to reflect the state of the article at 17:29, 21 October 2023 (UTC). -- Veggies (talk) 17:29, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

Thank you for doing this Veggies. It really helps to see things more clearly. The photos are unbalanced again, so trimming might resolve that. In addition, the war crimes section only has one photo of "A mosque destroyed by an Israeli airstrike, Khan Younis, 8 October" (Gaza rubble #4 in your photos above). There seems to be a new war crimes article and the photos that had been in this article were moved there. I do think adding another photo of the Israeli attacks in this article's war crimes section would be helpful. JJMM (talk) 04:28, 24 October 2023 (UTC)

I would suggest removing photos entirely from that section; two would be too many for the size of that section, but having a photo of only one side is an NPOV violation. BilledMammal (talk) 04:31, 24 October 2023 (UTC)

Either way would be good. Yes, clearly it is a NPOV violation the way it is now. JJMM (talk) 04:40, 24 October 2023 (UTC)

Jewish diaspora

I think it's wise if this section is split up into two subsections — with one subsection on Jewish support for Israel and one on support for Palestine. The current section starts out with the pro Israel events and then goes to just some celebrities bernie sanders, so that I think creates a bias that the Jewish diaspora is by and large for Israel. I likewise didn't see any explicit discussion here on the role of the Jewish diaspora as *groups* who support Palestine AND attended the protests AND locked the White House and surrounded various US congress/senator offices (like Pelosi's). Hovsepig (talk) 09:18, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

Protests on the 2023 Israel–Hamas war also likely needs sub-dividing. Iskandar323 (talk) 09:45, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

Support for this. I think a summary of pro-Palestine responses from the Jewish diaspora is a good idea. XTheBedrockX (talk) 15:06, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

And? (Tbh I'm just commenting here because I fear the archiving bot) Hovsepig (talk) 21:38, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

See my comment below on deleted Jewish diaspora reactions in updated "Reaction: Arab world" Talk section. The article's Reaction section seems unbalanced now. JJMM (talk) 04:29, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

yes that Jewish diaspora section is too relevant and should be brought back. Or perhaps move the reactions section to a separate page? Hovsepig (talk) 01:59, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

At least some of the text/refs from the Jewish diaspora subsection could be brought back and placed in the International subsection of Reactions. JJMM (talk) 04:45, 24 October 2023 (UTC)

• Support this Andre🚐 17:07, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

Reports of several pro Iranian militias deploying themselves on the disputed Golan heights border

SOHR has reported that several Syrian, Iraqi, and Afghani militiamen (presumably under the Popular Mobilization Units, Liwa Fatemiyoun, and National Defense Forces banners) have deployed themselves to the Golan Heights border with Israel. If SOHR's reports are to be believed, they have placed themselves under the command of the Lebanese Hezbollah, and are allegedly acting against the orders of Syrian military officials.

Should these accounts be added to this page?

Source: https://www.syriahr.com/en/314883/ Randomuser335S (talk) 20:24, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

Not yet. Two issues: I would want more than SOHR as a source to use this in the article. But also, it's not clear where it would belong in this article yet. This SOHR report does not allege that these militia fighters have participated in any fighting yet. --Jprg1966 ^(talk) 22:38, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

This is actually reported in The Economist as well, I'll see if I can find the article. Alcibiades979 (talk) 08:10, 24 October 2023 (UTC)