Talk:Alumim massacre

Question about a title

User:Iskandar323 you add title "This article's factual accuracy is disputed." ther are many References. What is dispute in this article? I do not undersand why you add this title? Hanay (talk) 09:53, 1 November 2023 (UTC)

Just that - the references were added without editing the text, and most of the text simply fails verification with respect to the actual sources scattered alongside them. This is the exact opposite of our process. Iskandar323 (talk) 10:18, 1 November 2023 (UTC)

@Homerethegreat: I expect to you revert this edit removing tags in an edit with a blank edit summary and without addressing the issues raised. I can't think why you think removing tags on the sly is a good idea. Iskandar323 (talk) 10:21, 1 November 2023 (UTC)

Hey Iskandar, I wrote in the previous edit summaries that I added extra citations etc. Therefore thought it was unnecessary since I fulfilled the tasks at hand. If you have further issues, feel free to tell post and help building this article. Thank you! Homerethegreat (talk) 10:38, 1 November 2023 (UTC)

This article is one big issue. Every other fact/statement fails verification. Iskandar323 (talk) 11:08, 1 November 2023 (UTC)

I added the refences after validating that they are relevant to the text. There was no need to change the text because the fact were true, ang just the refernce was missing.

The question of notability in the top of this article is very strange and awkward. The article tells about the murder of 19 uninvolved civilians by terrorist. How can you have any doubt about its notability? דוד שי (talk) 19:26, 1 November 2023 (UTC)

Speaking of numbers, there doesn't seem to be a single consistent one on the page and there's also no alignment between lead and body, and infobox and body. The page is completely botched. Iskandar323 (talk) 20:34, 1 November 2023 (UTC)

Way forward on this article

Hi Hanay, Homerethegreat, דוד שי and other editors contributing to this page. Thanks for your contributions, and sorry that some of the Wikipedia policies are frustrating you. Wikipedia aims to provide encyclopedic articles past on secondary sources. Its policies assist with this, but can be irritating, especially when the topic is as emotional as this one.

The prose and references you’ve brought together here on the whole are good but they’re not coming together in a way required by Wikipedia’s verification policy WP:V. Every fact in the article needs to be supported by an inline reference which clearly supports that fact, which isn’t currently the case.

in addition the article needs to be written in Wikipedia’s “voice” which as an encyclopedia is a neutral voice WP:NPOV. This is also difficult because you’re angry and you want to write in your own angry voice. You can do that in a blog or other venue, but it won’t work here because uninvolved editors will revert anything that is not neutral.

Finally another policy that you may find even more difficult is that Wikipedia does not allow value laden words like “terrorist” MOS:TERRORIST. In this case the word “militant” is used instead. Again, I understand that you consider them terrorists, but Wikipedia must remain neutral.

I and other neutral editors will be helping you write the article so that it meets the various requirements. I’ll explain each major change I make here and you’re welcome to debate them.

if you want to see other articles related to kibbutz etc. attacks which have already been through this process, open the blue box under the article’s main info box (2023 Israel-Hamas war). Under the “attacks” subheading there are many (unfortunately) articles the same as this one. They aren’t perfect but they show how editors work collaboratively to try and get informative, neutral, verified articles, especially on such difficult topics. Ayenaee (talk) 08:01, 3 November 2023 (UTC)

References

I’ve set out below the refs I’ll use. Mostly those we had plus a couple more for additional verification. I found one Hebrew article in English (same source). The other two are central to verification of the timeline so I kept those. I’ve indicated broadly where the refs will be used.

Lead

Only includes summary of main content, so doesn’t need citations because it takes them from the article content it summarizes .

Attack

• "כיתת כוננות מול עשרות מחבלים: הקרב שהציל את קיבוץ עלומים". www.makorrishon.co.il (in Hebrew). October 13, 2023. Retrieved November 2, 2023.

- Nepali and Thai workers. 16 of them were killed and 8 were kidnapped to Gaza

- Most comprehensive timeline of events

• "Town by town: the tragic and heroic human stories behind the Hamas attack". ynetnews.com. October 30, 2023. Retrieved November 2, 2023.

- 20 foreigners killed

- Part timeline verification

• "Israeli dairy farmers slaughtered by Hamas as they milked their cows". tsln.com. October 13, 2023. Retrieved November 2, 2023.

- 16 and 8 foreigners killed and kidnapped.

- Part timeline verification

- Dairy infrastructure damaged (also aftermath)

• "היינו 12 תושבים מול עשרות מחבלים. נלחמנו על הבית". mako.co.I’ll (in Hebrew). October 11, 2023. Retrieved November 2, 2023.

- Part timeline verification

• "British-Israeli survivor tells of horrific scenes after kibbutz attack". theguardian.com. October 10, 2023. Retrieved November 2, 2023.

- What civilians were doing during attack

• "Israel at war: 26 hours in a bomb shelter as death rained all around". jpost.com. October 21, 2023. Retrieved November 2, 2023.

- What a civilian family was doing during attack.

Casualties

I’ll citify these later:

• https://www.timesofisrael.com/thai-laborers-the-working-hands-of-israeli-farming-pay-with-blood/
• https://edition.cnn.com/2023/10/13/asia/thailand-migrant-workers-israel-gaza-conflict-intl-hnk/index.html
• https://www.timesofisrael.com/foreigners-from-across-the-globe-killed-missing-or-abducted-in-hamas-massacre/
• https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/20/i-was-helpless-nepali-survivors-of-hamas-attack-in-israel-haunted-by-trauma
• https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-israeli-farmers-near-gaza-damage-may-be-temporary-but-long-term-crisis-looms/

Foreign deaths and their impact on foreigners and Israel

• https://www.timesofisrael.com/noam-slotki-31-yishay-slotki-24-brothers-fought-and-died-together/
• https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/378310

Two Israeli soldiers who were brothers dies. Additional info on their famous Grandfather.

Aftermath

• https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/idf-publishes-video-of-hamas-attacker-describing-orders-to-kill-rape/
• https://www.timesofisrael.com/in-coded-doc-hamas-instructed-terrorists-to-kill-civilians-take-captives-report/

Hamas objectives

The use of each ref may change as I change the text to fit its ref. Ayenaee (talk) 13:46, 3 November 2023 (UTC)

Notability and Verifiability

having reviewed the references, I believe they demonstrate the notability and verifiability (after changes to the article text) of this article. I’m therefore removing the tag. Please discuss here if you disagree.

I will now proceed with the rewrite - it will take about 24 hrs (unfortunately my job expects me to work to earn my living 😔 so can’t wiki full time). Anyone else is obviously welcome to give the rewrite a try. Ayenaee (talk) 13:55, 3 November 2023 (UTC)

External Links

The links in this section are actually citations for the article. I have moved them to the references above. See the guideline WP:EXTERNAL for when it is appropriate to use this section rather than inline refs. I don’t think the section is needed in this article. Ayenaee (talk) 19:03, 3 November 2023 (UTC)

Casualties

Thai and Nepalese

Ignoring refs that don’t give a breakdown of both killed and kidnapped, there are:

- 3 refs that give the breakdown of the Nepalese killed and kidnapped which agree that these were 10 and 1

- 1 ref giving a breakdown of Thai killed as 7 and kidnapped 5

- 3 references give totals killed and kidnapped. 2 agree that these were 16 and 8. The other (the one that gives the full breakdown) says 17 and 5.

- The full breakdown ref says 41 total Thai and Nepalese worked at Alumim.

I therefore propose the following in describing the foreign casualties:

- Of 41 Thai and Nepalese foreigners working at the kibbutz, 16 were killed (one reference says 17) and 8 were kidnapped (one reference says 5). (With appropriate refs for all numbers)

- Give the Thai/Nepalese breakdown from the one ref in the article body but not lead.

Other civilian casualties

None of the refs mention deaths or kidnapping of civilian kibbutz members. The refs seem to indicate That these were prevented by the security team (but this is ambiguous). The one reference mentions that an unknown number of people driving on the road outside the kibbutz were shot, but no definite numbers are given. If anyone has additional referenced detail please give it here.

IDF casualties

only the two brothers are mentioned as deaths from the IDF. If anyone has additional referenced detail please give it here.

Hamas casualties

The original article mentioned that 30 Hamas militants were involved. I cannot find this number mentioned in any of the refs. There’s a mention of 8 militants on 4 motorcycles. Refs seem to intimate that more were involved but I can’t see clear numbers. The original article also says that ALL Hamas militants were killed, but again I can’t find this in any reference. This statement does seem to be contradicted by one ref which discusses a militant caught at Alumim, and refers to a video of him. I’m leaving these in for now with citation needed tags. But if refs can’t be found these will need to be weakened to mention the “at least 8 militants” and “a large number of militants killed, with at least one captured” if you now where these numbers come from please give the refs here. Ayenaee (talk) 19:03, 3 November 2023 (UTC)

Lead

Based on the above discussion I have put up a new version of the lead:

• I have removed the wording in the original lead related to the wider war. This article is linked to the main war article which has well referenced text on the overall war. It is not necessary to repeat that in this article which should only focus on the events at Alumim.
• All other lead items in the original article are included in this lead, but in NPOV Wikipedia voice.
• All statements in the lead can be referenced, except the two citation needed items mentioned above.
• All statements will be mentioned and detailed in the main body with refs, which will support the lead. Ayenaee (talk) 19:03, 3 November 2023 (UTC)

Can I ask what is the main source for the numbers? Because the figures are still bouncing about. We have 16-17 in the lead, 19 in the body and 18-19 in the infobox - and I can't make rhyme or reason out of it. Iskandar323 (talk) 04:14, 4 November 2023 (UTC)

Hi Iskandar323, I’m sorry for the confusion but you looked at the article before I updated the main body which I’ve just done now. So:

* The number of foreigners killed from 2 sources (ref’d in the body under the casualty section) is 16 or 17

* The numbers in the info box are the 16/17 plus the two IDF deaths (also ref’d in the casualty section) giving 18/19. I’m not sure if the soldiers should be added to the total? If the intention of the info box is that only civilians should be noted, then this should change to “16 or 17”

* The 19 was from the previous article, and has been removed in the update because no ref is available.

Now that I’m finished I’d appreciate your review of the whole article.

From other pages,it looks like box only shows civilian casualties so have changed it to 16/17 Ayenaee (talk) 00:48, 5 November 2023 (UTC)

Rewrite complete

I have completed the rewrite of the body of the article. I don’t expect to do any more major editing from now.

• If there are minor corrections (spelling, grammar, formatting etc) you want to make please make them directly to the article.
• Any other changes should be brought to this talk page for discussion and consensus. I don’t think WP:BRD will work on these kinds of page because of their sensitive nature and misunderstandings that can occur (IMHO not a wiki rule).

I have made the following major changes to the article body:

• Inserted citations and rewritten the text to reflect what’s in these.
• Changed wording to be more reflective of neutral Wikipedia voice.
• In rewriting attack section I’ve removed some detail of what happened to individuals, and tried to only reflect the major battle components.
• Expanded the casualty section significantly to indicate casualties in all participant groups.
• Merged the investigation section into the aftermath section.
• I kept the majority of refs in the original article and added some more. I removed the following two because the don’t relate directly to Alumin

- {cite web |title=What we know: The number of foreigners killed, missing, abducted in Israel |url=https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/10/what-we-know-the-number-of-foreigners-killed-missing-abducted-in-israel |website=aljazeera.com |access-date=November 1, 2023 |date=10 Oct 2023}}

It gives total Thais killed across the region not just in Alumim. Another ref has been used for Thais killed.

- “Despite the taking of hostages in Alumim among other Israeli settlements, an interrogation video by Israel's Shin Beit showed a Hamas militant saying that the goal of Hamas was to kill, but not to kidnap, also women and children, whom the militant said to be collectively perceived as "Israeli soldiers" by Hamas.{Cite web |title=Hamas terrorist: 'Our mission was simply to kill' |url=https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/defense-news/article-771208 |access-date=2023-11-03 |website=The Jerusalem Post |language=en-US}}

Although Alumim is mentioned in passing, what is said relates to a militant participating and captured at the Kfar Aza attack.

• I have resolved the citation needed items I put in the lead by aligning the lead with my understanding of these items from the references.

I wish everyone peace and good editing. Ayenaee (talk) 21:00, 4 November 2023 (UTC)

Mention of detail of instructions from video

Editor אומנות made a good faith change to the last sentence of the article. They mentioned to me on my talk page that they thought this was a minor change reverting to wording from the original article. Since I applied my mind to how to use the citation in this sentence I told them that I don't think the change is minor (although I understand why they made the change), and wanted to bring it here for further discussion. The edit correctly reflects what the source says so I have not reverted.

The RS states that the IDF gave it a video of a hamas militant stating the instructions he was given. The video is not included in the report - although nothing indicates that such a video doesn’t exist. If those instructions were given then they would be war crimes. The new wording is not wrong, it expresses exactly what the source says. The difference is that I reported that instructions which would be war crimes may have been given without mentioning what the instructions were, while the revision mentions what those instructions allegedly were (“to carry out beheadings, amputation of legs, and permission by his group leaders to rape the corpse of a girl”).

My concern was that we don’t know the circumstances of the video. I’d have the same concerns if the video related to kidnapped Israeli civilians or soldiers. I’d like to think that all combatants follow the Geneva Conventions relating to prisoners, but to do so would be naive (related to all wars and combatants). So although it’s clear the source is reporting what it heard a prisoner say on the video, we don’t know what if any coercion was used to get those statements, which are against the prisoner’s best interest. So my question is whether it’s appropriate to use statements from an RS where those statements may have been coerced (by any side).

To acknowledge this I made an editorial decision to use the RS ref, but to leave out the actual instructions - which are there for a reader if they click through to the resource. Since neither approach is “wrong” I would like others to decide on the approach.

Thoughts on which way we should go? Has this been discussed elsewhere on wiki? Ayenaee (talk) 21:04, 5 November 2023 (UTC)