| This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the October 7 attacks article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the subject of the article. |
Article policies
|
| Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL |
| Archives: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9Auto-archiving period: 30 days |
You are an administrator, so you may disregard the message below You are seeing this because of the limitations of {{If extended confirmed}} and {{If admin}}
You can hide this message box by adding the following to a new line of your common.css page: .ECR-edit-request-warning {
display: none;
}
Stop: You may only use this page to create an edit request This article is related to the Arab–Israeli conflict, which is subject to the extended-confirmed restriction. You are not an extended-confirmed user, so you must not edit or discuss this topic anywhere on Wikipedia except to make an edit request. (Additional details are in the message box just below this one.) |
Warning: active arbitration remedies The contentious topics procedure applies to this article. This article relates to the Arab–Israeli conflict, a contentious topic.The following restrictions apply to everyone editing this article:
Editors who repeatedly or seriously fail to adhere to the purpose of Wikipedia, any expected standards of behaviour, or any normal editorial process may be blocked or restricted by an administrator. |
| Wikipedia is not censored. Images or details contained within this article may be graphic or otherwise objectionable to some readers, to ensure a quality article and complete coverage of its subject matter. For more information, please refer to Wikipedia's content disclaimer regarding potentially objectionable content and options for not seeing an image. |
|
| While the biographies of living persons policy does not apply directly to the subject of this article, it may contain material that relates to living persons, such as friends and family of persons no longer living, or living persons involved in the subject matter. Unsourced or poorly sourced contentious material about living persons must be removed immediately. If such material is re-inserted repeatedly, or if there are other concerns related to this policy, please see this noticeboard. |
| This It is of interest to multiple WikiProjects. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
This article has been mentioned by multiple media organizations:
|
On 9 April 2025, October 7 attacks was mentioned on Twitter, a high-traffic website. (Traffic) All prior and subsequent edits to the article are noted in its revision history. |
| This article has previously been nominated to be moved. Please review the prior discussions if you are considering re-nomination. Discussions:
|
Reference ideas for October 7 attacks The following references may be useful when improving this article in the future:
|
| Other talk page banners | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Scale
[edit]@Smallangryplanet, where does this article say that "Israel's claims about the ... scale ... of sexual assaults did not stand up to scrutiny."?
The article says the following about the numbers
| “ | In her report, Patten said the scale of what happened might never be made clear. But, she added, “I do not have numbers in the report because for me one case is more than enough,” she told reporters. “The first letter that I received from the government of Israel talked about hundreds or thousands of cases of brutal sexual violence perpetrated against men, women and children. I have not found anything like that.”
But Patten also spoke of the grave difficulties of ascertaining the truth in a case where most who suffered sexual violence were probably dead. Soussana’s account, along with that of other hostages, allowed for more certainty about the abuse of hostages; there remain 19 women either dead or still captive whose stories may never be heard unless they are freed alive. After a number of freed hostages spoke about the abuse of others still held, some families urged them to be quiet, fearful it was now too easy to identify them. We are aware of several stories of the abuse of women and children that, if recounted, would rob the victims of their privacy. Families have lobbied the government about their fear, including whether they could send abortion pills into Gaza in case their loved ones fell pregnant by their abuser. |
” |
Note that this is attributed to Patten and not told in the newspaper's own voice, so we should attribute it accordingly like I've done in my edit. Alaexis¿question? 13:11, 24 November 2025 (UTC)
- Questioning Israeli claims regarding the "systematic" nature of the sexual violence includes scope/scale/extent, the article repeatedly notes that claims regarding the scope/scale/extent by Israeli officials do not stand up to scrutiny, and this is not merely limited to Patten and her report (which was written by a team of experts), but also to other experts and their own independent investigations (see excerpts added below). The current, stable version accurately reflects the content of the
detailed investigative report
.
| “ | Meanwhile, the political establishment has opened a fresh battle with the UN over what the Patten report didn’t say: that sexual violence was beyond reasonable doubt, systematic, widespread and ordered and perpetrated by Hamas. Israeli advocates for the female survivors are now warning that the country’s refusal to co-operate with a full and legal investigation, which the carefully worded report was not, threatens the prospect of ever finding out the full truth about the sexual violence of October 7 and delivering justice for its victims. | ” |
| “ | On November 14, the police held their first press conference for the international media on their investigations into sexual assault. Despite promising new evidence on its systematic nature, none was provided. A short video clip was aired with testimony by "Witness S", who described in horrific detail witnessing a gang rape and murder while hiding at the festival. To this date, police have not interviewed a single survivor. On December 24, the police issued a decree to hospitals ordering them to hand over accounts of any rape survivor who had sought treatment. On January 4, the police put out a fresh appeal for witnesses, saying they had succeeded in interviewing just three and had been unable to match their accounts with the bodies collected from the massacre site. | ” |
| “ | The report also confirmed Israeli authorities were unable to provide much of the evidence that political leaders had insisted existed. In all the Hamas video footage Patten’s team had watched and all the photographs they had seen, there were no depictions of rape. We hired a leading Israeli dark-web researcher to look for evidence of those images, including footage deleted from public sources. None could be found. | ” |
| “ | The report would prove confusing to the Israeli political establishment. On the one hand, it gives substantial and substantiated credence to the sexual assault claims; on the other it does not show them to be systematic and specifically says Israel has been unable to produce evidence it has claimed to possess of Hamas’s written orders to rape. | ” |
| “ | In her report, Patten said the scale of what happened might never be made clear. But, she added, "I do not have numbers in the report because for me one case is more than enough," she told reporters. "The first letter that I received from the government of Israel talked about hundreds or thousands of cases of brutal sexual violence perpetrated against men, women and children. I have not found anything like that." | ” |
| “ | Dr Reut Plonsker, a senior psychologist with SafeHeart, believes the focus on sexual violence has been unhelpful for Nova festival survivors wrestling with their trauma. "I don’t think there were a lot of sexual assaults," she says. “There was a lot of murder. That’s what happened there. People were hiding and watching very horrible things." | ” |
Smallangryplanet (talk) 16:06, 24 November 2025 (UTC)
- But the current wording is not a fair summary of the excerpts. Only the penultimate one is about the scale/numbers. Alaexis¿question? 21:07, 24 November 2025 (UTC)
- All of them directly question Israeli government and police claims regarding scale/scope/extent/systemic nature and say they do not stand up to scrutiny. Smallangryplanet (talk) 21:18, 24 November 2025 (UTC)
- I don't think this is accurate summary of a very nuanced article. (1) The "stand up to scrutiny" and "formally sanctioned" words are not used by the NYT in their own voice, but come from the WP:HEADLINE where it's put in a third party voice:
The Israeli government insists that Hamas formally sanctioned sexual assault on October 7, 2023. But investigators say the evidence does not stand up to scrutiny. Catherine Philp and Gabrielle Weiniger report on eight months of claim and counter-claim
. (2) "a detailed investigative report" is also misleading. Mostly the article carefully describes existing investigations (particularly Patten's) and so makes an excellent secondary source for covering them. The following passages are the only ones referring to new research:We hired a leading Israeli dark-web researcher to look for evidence of those images, including footage deleted from public sources. None could be found.
After a number of freed hostages spoke about the abuse of others still held, some families urged them to be quiet, fearful it was now too easy to identify them. We are aware of several stories of the abuse of women and children that, if recounted, would rob the victims of their privacy.
- And (3) in relation to "systematic" it repeatedly says that Patten's investigation (not theirs) was unable to confirm the systematic nature of the attacks. In short, none of what our sentence says is accurate. BobFromBrockley (talk) 23:24, 24 November 2025 (UTC)
- I tend to disagree here. It reads like an accurate reflection of the content of the report to me. As regards the description of "detailed investigative report", the piece does not mostly describe existing investigations. That is only in the passages that were quoted by @Smallangryplanet. The rest of the article includes investigations of claims made by particular Israeli government affiliated officials, the Israeli legal system and prevalence of racism and how it interacts with conceptions of heightened sexual violence from Palestinians, the flawed work done by rescue organizations such as Zaka, and more. Calling it detailed is accurate.
- "Stand up to scrutiny" and "formally sanctioned" do not have to be explicitly used in the text of the piece for them to be accurate descriptions of the content, which they are, and the fact that it is used in the sub-heading of the piece itself does not detract from that.
- For instance, the piece states on multiple occasions that there is no evidence for the Israeli claim that rapes were ordered by Hamas. Saying that the piece thus questions Israeli claims of its formally sanctioned nature regarding that is plainly accurate separate from the use of that phrase in the sub-heading, which is not used as the source for it.
- If however you insist on changing that to "ordered", and the "stand up to scrutiny" to "lacked credibility", that is fine by me.
- As regards the question of scale, I don't see what the issue is here. The quotes provided show clearly that the piece questions Israeli claims regarding the scope and systematic nature of the sexual violence, not only via Patten and her report, but also in its own voice as in the case of the Israeli police and government claims regarding witnesses and evidence and footage, as well as the psychologist. However, I would be fine with adding clarification on the the broader range of sources for this.
- I don't think this is accurate summary of a very nuanced article. (1) The "stand up to scrutiny" and "formally sanctioned" words are not used by the NYT in their own voice, but come from the WP:HEADLINE where it's put in a third party voice:
- All of them directly question Israeli government and police claims regarding scale/scope/extent/systemic nature and say they do not stand up to scrutiny. Smallangryplanet (talk) 21:18, 24 November 2025 (UTC)
- In short, I would be fine with a rephrasing to something along these lines: "In June 2024, The Times published a detailed investigative report which includes interviews with experts such as Pramila Patten as well as its own analyses, and concludes that Israel's claims about the evidence, scale, systematic and ordered nature of sexual assaults lacked credibility." Raskolnikov.Rev (talk) 23:51, 24 November 2025 (UTC)
- That's still an improper synthesis. The words "lacked credibility" do not appear in the article at all. I don't think that @Bobfrombrockley suggested this change in his comment above.
- Also, let's keep this focused on the scale of sexual violence. Alaexis¿question? 21:04, 25 November 2025 (UTC)
- In short, I would be fine with a rephrasing to something along these lines: "In June 2024, The Times published a detailed investigative report which includes interviews with experts such as Pramila Patten as well as its own analyses, and concludes that Israel's claims about the evidence, scale, systematic and ordered nature of sexual assaults lacked credibility." Raskolnikov.Rev (talk) 23:51, 24 November 2025 (UTC)
Edit request 7 December 2025
[edit]This edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= parameter to no to reactivate your request. |
Description of suggested change:
Diff:
Warning Unnamed parameter |1= set to default value. Please change it. Failure to use {{Text diff}} to specify your requested text changes, if not adequately described above, may lead to your request being denied.
Pedsermd (talk) 15:44, 7 December 2025 (UTC)
The article uses the word "militant" assigned to the Hamas individuals in photographs. It should be "terrorists". Using the word "militant" is euphemistic at best, and erroneous and biased. Is this an example of the reports that Wikipedia has become biased in its pages about current events, such as social issues and politics?
- 1. This edit request does not follow the WP:EDITXY guidelines.
- 2. The statement 'It should be "terrorists"' is a personal opinion. This is not useful for edit requests. There is a guideline. See WP:TERRORIST.
- 3. Regarding
Is this an example of the reports that Wikipedia has become biased in its pages about current events, such as social issues and politics?
, that is observer dependent. People are free to see whatever patterns they want. Objectively, it is an example of the alignment of content with Wikipedia's content rules. Neutrality is a mandatory policy. Sean.hoyland (talk) 16:14, 7 December 2025 (UTC)
Not done: Not done per above Babysharkb☩ss2 I am Thou, Thou art I 19:02, 7 December 2025 (UTC)
A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion
[edit]The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:
Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 17:52, 12 December 2025 (UTC)
Points of Contention with "Friendly fire and use of the Hannibal Directive" Section of Article
[edit]There are four points of contention I have with the "Friendly fire and use of the Hannibal Directive" section of this article.
1. WP: SYNTH in the First Paragraph: The first paragraph begins by citing an "immense and complex quantity of friendly-fire incidents", followed by a citation of the IDF applying the Hannibal Directive in practice. However, the remainder of the article discusses the alleged application of the Hannibal Directive, but does not mention any incidents that resulted in casualties from the cited examples, seemingly leading to WP:SYNTH due to the implication that the Hannibal Directive was the source of "friendly fire". Additionally, the paragraph ends by stating that "It is unclear how many hostages were killed by friendly fire," before citing that "around 70 burnt-out vehicles on roads leading to Gaza had been fired on by helicopters or tanks, killing all occupants in at least some cases." This seems to be WP:SYNTH due to the implication that those 70 vehicles that were sourced to have been fired upon had contained/caused the deaths of Israelis, when that claim itself is not specifically noted.
2. WP: SYNTH in the Second Paragraph: The second paragraph of the section says that there was originally heavy helicopter fire before more careful selection was chosen, then an alleged Israeli report of helicopter fire at the Nova Festival killing Israelis, which was denied by the Israeli Police. However, the paragraph then states "In the aftermath of the attack, Israel buried hundreds of burned cars that were at the scene of the attacks 'To preserve the sanctity of those murdered by Hamas'." This is taken from an article that is not discussing claims of friendly fire/Hannibal Directive and seems to be WP:SYNTH due to the implication that the cars were buried due to friendly fire incidents, which is not supported by the source. Then, the article says "Subsequent investigation has determined that militants had been instructed not to run so that the air force would think they were Israelis. This deception worked for some time, but pilots began to realize the problem and ignore their restrictions. By around 9 a.m., amid the chaos, some helicopters started laying down fire without prior authorization." In conjunction with the rest of the paragraph, there is an implication that this helicopter fire killed Israelis, whereas the article the quotes come from do not mention either friendly fire or a Hannibal Directive. This also seems to be WP:SYNTH.
3. Wording of UN Commission findings The UN Commission report uses terminology such as “strong indications” and “likely killed” to discuss the Hannibal directive, while the article’s wording presents these findings more definitively, using the phrasing "A report by a UN Commission published in June 2024 found that the Israeli security forces used the Hannibal Directive in several instances on October 7." In the article cited, only one exampled was stated to be "confirmed".
4. ABC News Paragraph Is a Duplication of Haaretz Material
The ABC News paragraph is based on a source that is discussing the allegations presented in the Haaretz article (which already has a few paragraphs). Many of the allegations in the ABC paragraph are reports on the allegations that are previously discussed in the wikipedia article when discussing the Haaretz report, resulting in duplication of claims based on the same report, creating WP:UNDUE emphasis. EaglesFan37 (talk) 20:04, 18 December 2025 (UTC)
RFc on the "Friendly Fire and use of the "Hannibal Directive" Section" of Article
[edit]
|
Does the "Friendly fire and use of the Hannibal Directive" portion of this article necessitate revision due to noncompliance with WP:SYNTH and WP:UNDUE?
- Does the first paragraph constitute WP:SYNTH?
- Does the second paragraph constitute WP:SYNTH?
- Does the article's wording of the UN Commission findings overstate it's findings?
- Does the ABC News Paragraph consist of a duplication of previous cited material, resulting in WP:UNDUE? EaglesFan37 (talk) 21:14, 27 December 2025 (UTC)
- This is my viewpoint on the four questions above:
- 1. The first paragraph begins by citing an "immense and complex quantity of friendly-fire incidents", followed by a citation of the IDF applying the Hannibal Directive in practice. However, the remainder of the article discusses the alleged application of the Hannibal Directive, but does not mention any incidents that resulted in casualties from the cited examples, seemingly leading to WP:SYNTH due to the implication that the Hannibal Directive was the source of "friendly fire". Additionally, the paragraph ends by stating that "It is unclear how many hostages were killed by friendly fire," before citing that "around 70 burnt-out vehicles on roads leading to Gaza had been fired on by helicopters or tanks, killing all occupants in at least some cases." This seems to be WP:SYNTH due to the implication that those 70 vehicles that were sourced to have been fired upon had contained/caused the deaths of Israelis, when that claim itself is not specifically noted.
- 2. The second paragraph of the section says that there was originally heavy helicopter fire before more careful selection was chosen, then an alleged Israeli report of helicopter fire at the Nova Festival killing Israelis, which was denied by the Israeli Police. However, the paragraph then states "In the aftermath of the attack, Israel buried hundreds of burned cars that were at the scene of the attacks 'To preserve the sanctity of those murdered by Hamas'." This is taken from an article that does not discuss claims of friendly fire/Hannibal Directive and seems to be WP:SYNTH due to the implication that the cars were buried due to friendly fire incidents, which is not supported by the source. Then, the article says "Subsequent investigation has determined that militants had been instructed not to run so that the air force would think they were Israelis. This deception worked for some time, but pilots began to realize the problem and ignore their restrictions. By around 9 a.m., amid the chaos, some helicopters started laying down fire without prior authorization." In conjunction with the rest of the paragraph, there is an implication that this helicopter fire killed Israelis, whereas the article the quotes come from do not mention either friendly fire or a Hannibal Directive. This also seems to be WP:SYNTH.
- 3. Wording of UN Commission findings The UN Commission report uses terminology such as “strong indications” and “likely killed” to discuss the Hannibal directive, while the article’s wording presents these findings more definitively, using the phrasing "A report by a UN Commission published in June 2024 found that the Israeli security forces used the Hannibal Directive in several instances on October 7." In the article cited, only one exampled was stated to be "confirmed".
- 4. The ABC News paragraph is based on a source that is discussing the allegations presented in the Haaretz article (which already has a few paragraphs of coverage). Many of the allegations in the ABC paragraph are reports on the allegations that are previously discussed in the wikipedia article when discussing the Haaretz report, resulting in duplication of claims based on the same report, creating WP:UNDUE emphasis. EaglesFan37 (talk) 21:19, 27 December 2025 (UTC)
- @EaglesFan37, I suggest you move everything after the words "This is my viewpoint" (including this comment) to a separate Discussion subsection at the end to conform with RFCNEUTRAL.
- Personally I also see problems with this section but I think that it makes sense to pause this RfC. There were no responses to your "Points of contention" post so you can try to achieve consensus by editing. If no one objects to your edits, or if there is a healthy discussion leading to consensus then there would be no need for an RfC. Only if you see that you can't resolve a disagreement this way an RfC would be necessary. Alaexis¿question? 21:13, 28 December 2025 (UTC)
- @Alaexis The "this is my viewpoint" part was the beginning of a separate comment.
- I see why I an rfc may not have been neccessary, I just would have preferred to have consensus before making a large edit in PIA. EaglesFan37 (talk) 22:53, 28 December 2025 (UTC)
- I understand but it may still trigger "bad RfC" !votes which will hamper receiving real feedback. Alaexis¿question? 07:32, 29 December 2025 (UTC)
- Procedural close 1) There is no WP:RFCBEFORE. 2) The RfC statement is not neutrally worded. M.Bitton (talk) 00:11, 28 December 2025 (UTC)
- @M.Bitton. I left a message asking about the points of discussion 9 days before I made an rFc to try to get more community consensus. I'll strikethrough the non-neutral part of the rFc EaglesFan37 (talk) 02:15, 28 December 2025 (UTC)
- It is rather large bit at the start of the RfC, it should be moved to a discussion section and just a one liner left saying it has been moved. I agree with Alexis about not really seeing why you need the RfC. It is good to warn people about potential large or contentionus changes but if they don't respond then just go ahead and then people will object if they really want to! Only if a straightforward discussion after that fails do you need to start an RfC. The problem with RfCs is that they inhibit proper discussion which might be more productive, they are more for finally ending when a straightforward consensus is difficult. They should not be used early on. I agree with procedural close. NadVolum (talk) 19:17, 29 December 2025 (UTC)






