Talk:October 7 attacks

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Random article about Syria under "see also"

What it says on the tin. Without explanation, the "see also" section links to a random article about the Syrian Civil War, which should probably just be deleted. JamieRagins (talk) 08:21, 21 November 2025 (UTC)

 Removed. Yep, good point, I don't know what that's doing there. I've also removed September 11 attacks from See also. Other than being carried out by Islamic people and both of them being attacks that took place on a date, there's no real link.  — Amakuru (talk) 08:31, 21 November 2025 (UTC)

"Oct 7th" listed at Redirects for discussion

The redirect Oct 7th has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2025 November 22 § Oct 7th until a consensus is reached. Thepharoah17 (talk) 10:08, 22 November 2025 (UTC)

"Oct 7th." listed at Redirects for discussion

The redirect Oct 7th. has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2025 November 22 § Oct 7th. until a consensus is reached. ArthananWarcraft (talk) 10:37, 22 November 2025 (UTC)

Relevance of Simchat Torah

The article's introduction mentions that it coincided with Simchat Torah. I would argue that this should either be moved elsewhere in the article or deleted entirely as a) I have seen no real evidence that this timing was deliberate and b) other Jews may disagree, but at least from my secular American Jewish perspective Simchat Torah is not a major holiday. The way things stand it reads a bit to me like if an article about an attack on a majority-Catholic state opened by stating that it occurred on a minor saint's day in order to make it appear religiously motivated. JamieRagins (talk) 09:59, 24 November 2025 (UTC)

It should remain as is. Simchat Torah is a major holiday, many Israeli Jews were not on their phones, and it's hard to imagine that it was not a factor in trying to delay the response. Nehushtani (talk) 10:04, 24 November 2025 (UTC)

Any WP:RS you'd like to cite? إيان (talk) 11:05, 24 November 2025 (UTC)

See here (determined to be RS in this discussion), here and here (RS per this discussion). There was also significant discussion about how to celebrate the holiday the next year, see here and here. Nehushtani (talk) 11:19, 24 November 2025 (UTC)

None of this provides any material evidence that the timing was deliberate. JamieRagins (talk) 19:04, 24 November 2025 (UTC)

The article doesn't claim it was deliberate. The question is whether the day should be in the lead. I'd say yes, because (as we mention in the body, with sources) the Simchat Torah massacre is a quite common name for the events in Jewish sources. BobFromBrockley (talk) 23:04, 24 November 2025 (UTC)

That type of discussion belongs under the "Name" section, not in the very first sentence of the article. JamieRagins (talk) 23:13, 24 November 2025 (UTC)

Agreed. I believe it is pertinent information in understanding the event from an Israeli perspective and should remain as is. Nehushtani (talk) 06:47, 25 November 2025 (UTC)

Scale

@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.

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)

Edit request 7 December 2025

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)