A fierce “edit war” broke out on Wikipedia over a page dedicated to a deadly Israeli raid on the Nuseirat refugee camp near Deir el-Balah in central Gaza on the morning of June 8 .
The bloody attack – apparently intended to free four Israeli captives held there – killed nearly 300 displaced people and injured more than 700, overwhelming the nearby Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital.
Today, the Israeli raid has become the center of a heated editorial controversy on Wikipedia, which has been forced to restrict access to editing the page dedicated to the incident.
Here’s what we know about the creation of the Wikipedia page and the online war it sparked:
Who created the Wikipedia page on Nuseirat and why?
The Israeli raid on Nuseirat made headlines around the world due to the release of the four Israeli captives – Noa Argamani, 25; Almog Meir, January 21; Andrei Kozlov, 27 years old; and Shlomi Ziv, 40 – who was taken by Hamas from a music festival during the October 7 attacks on southern Israel. To explain what happened during the raid and rescue, a Wikipedia editor known only by the username “Galamore” created an article dedicated to the incident.
Wikipedia allows editors to remain anonymous by hiding their names and countries of origin. However, it does not guarantee that the identity of a publisher cannot be discovered by means beyond its control.
Molly White, an American computer engineer and technology researcher who has been a Wikipedia editor for 18 years, mostly editing political pages, told Tel Aviv Tribune: “Some argue that anonymity actually helps because, on the basis of identity personal of a person, you » I don’t assume things about them that might or might not be accurate. However, she added: “I think it can be difficult, if you don’t know a lot about a person, to assess what biases they might have, where they’re coming from, their level of expertise “.
After its creation, the article on the Nuseirat raid was edited 627 times by 103 users in just one week. This is an unusually large number of edits made to a single Wikipedia article. For comparison, the Wikipedia page on the October 7 Hamas attacks was edited 1,705 times by 368 people in eight months.
As is common practice when an “edit war” breaks out, Wikipedia administrators quickly locked the page, allowing access to only a few select editors. For anyone else trying to access the page to make changes, a notice appears stating that “only extended verified users and administrators can edit it.”
A registered editor becomes an “Extended Confirmed User” once their account has been in existence for 30 days and they have made at least 500 edits.
The article’s creator, Galamore, has been registered as a Wikipedia editor since December 25, 2023, and has made 1,186 edits to various Wikipedia articles, largely those featuring profiles of Israeli personalities, including footballer Yehezkel Chazom, the board game designer Ephraim Hertzano and chess master Moshe Aba Blass. According to Wikipedia, making more than 1,000 edits places an editor in the top 0.1% of Wikipedia editors in terms of number of edits.
What is an “edit war”?
An edit war occurs when two or more editors constantly change their respective contributions to an article, causing a repetitive cycle of reversions. This is also known as “vandalism” by Wikipedia users and includes “deliberately disruptive or malicious editing” of any page. This may include removing content or editing it so that it becomes intentionally biased, defamatory, offensive or degrading.
Edit wars are not uncommon on Wikipedia pages. White said: “It happens all the time. This is especially common with recent events, such as hot topics.
White said an edit war broke out over a page she helped edit about the January 6 Capitol Riots in Washington, D.C. in 2020. “There was a huge argument, which lasted for months, on the title of this article, if it were to be published. whether it be the “insurrection,” the “riots,” or the January 6 “attack” on the Capitol.
According to Wikipedia’s neutrality policy, pages should be written from a neutral point of view “without editorial bias.” It operates a set of monitoring tools that can alert it if an edit war appears to have broken out.
Wikipedia users can also add a “dispute tag” to a page, indicating that the neutrality of an article has been questioned. This could spark a broader discussion among Wikipedia staff about how to resolve the contentious issue and place the page in “protection mode” – restricting editing access to only certain editors – until that the problem is resolved.
How did the dispute over the Wikipedia article on Nuseirat unfold?
Here are some of the major changes made to the article during its first 50 hours. All times are GMT:
- June 8, 11:17 a.m.: The Wikipedia page titled “Operation Nuseirat” is launched by Galamore. The article names the recovered captives and mentions that the Gaza Health Ministry reported that “dozens of people were killed.”
- June 8, 12:00 p.m.: Galamore renames the page “Nuseirat Rescue Operation 2024” and adds: “After dozens of deaths and injuries among Hamas, the operation was described by Hamas as the “Nuseirat massacre.”
- June 8, 2:22 p.m.: An unknown user identified only by an IP address modifies this line to “the operation was nicknamed the ‘Nuseirat massacre'”. This user also adds “biased language” as a comment explaining why the edit was made.
- June 8, 3:40 p.m.: User “JDiala” edits the article to state that the death toll has reached at least 210 Palestinians and cites “Palestinian health officials” as the source. JDiala registered as an editor on Wikipedia on July 29, 2013 and has made 1,957 edits since then. The user’s profile features a Palestinian flag and a quote from Amira Hass, a columnist for the liberal Israeli newspaper Haaretz.
- June 8, 4:51 p.m.: A user called “Favonian” adds a “protection” to the page to restrict edits, citing a “disputed topic” as the reason, effectively locking the page.
- June 8, 5:05 p.m.: User “Dynamo128” posts on a discussion page linked to the article, writing “to the people who keep deleting my edits,…better calm down for now.”
- June 8, 6:54 p.m.: A second Wikipedia page reporting the Nuseirat raid is launched by user “Dylanvt”, titled “Nuseirat Refugee Camp Massacre” and discusses Palestinian casualty statistics in the first sentence. This page has garnered 37,029 views, almost half of the first page, which has 78,862.
- June 9, 2:43 a.m.: A user named Daniel Case adds a “protection” to the second Nuseirat page, also limiting who can edit it.
- June 9, 4:48 a.m.: A now-defunct account belonging to a user named “Owenglyndur” adds: “Following the operation, Hamas threatened the remaining hostages,” citing the Times of Israel.
- June 10, 2:16 p.m.: Dylanvt, the creator of the “Nuseirat Refugee Camp Massacre” page, posts on the “Nuseirat Rescue Operation 2024” talk page that the mention of mass civilian casualties was removed “twice.” For what? Do the movers dispute this fact? adding that the Israeli army “claims around 100 victims according to sources. Isn’t that enough to be “massive”?
- June 10, 9:24 p.m.: “Is there evidence that (the Israeli army) is responsible for civilian casualties? It was in Hamas-controlled territory,” user “KronosAlight” wrote in response to Dylanvt’s discussion.
The article angered many X users who were particularly upset that when searching for the keywords “Nuseirat massacre” on Google, only the Wikipedia article included the words “rescue operation” in its title appeared on the first page of results.
Wow. Google and Wikipedia, when you search for Nuseirat Massacre. #Gaza pic.twitter.com/ajB5c9opj8
– Emily F. (@My_Clever_Name) June 10, 2024
But when these users tried to edit the article themselves, they said they were unable to do so because Wikipedia had restricted access to edit the page. This sparked even more anger.
“This page is protected to prevent vandalism”…wow…so Wikipedia also helps advance the Zionist agenda. It was the Nuseirat massacre! More than 250 people were murdered in an attempt to free 4 people. pic.twitter.com/R2NplilMS2
– 1Creek🔻 (@1creeknation) June 11, 2024
Why did Wikipedia freeze the Nuseirat page?
While most Wikipedia pages are open to any registered user, an exception is made for certain articles which are locked or “protected” to prevent “disruptive editing on controversial pages”, explains the Wikipedia home page. When pages are locked, the new settings limit and slow down the number of changes made to pages.
There are different levels of locking. Both Nuseirat pages have been “fully locked”, meaning that only verified Wikipedia extended users and administrators can access them.
Editors trying to access either page are currently redirected to the talk page.
Have edit wars ever broken out on Wikipedia?
- Prominent politicians linked to legal scandals or other controversies are popular targets for content “vandalism” on Wikipedia. In 2018, for example, Pakistani politician Maryam Nawaz’s Wikipedia page was locked or “protected” after several vandalism attempts. Nawaz is currently the chief minister of Punjab. She is also the daughter of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. She was sentenced to seven years in prison in a corruption case, but was later acquitted by an Islamabad court in September 2022.
- Former United States President George W. Bush has one of the most edited Wikipedia pages with 48,105 edits. He ordered the invasion of Iraq in 2003, and many critics have disputed his administration’s claimed evidence of the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The issue was a point of contention for many Wikipedia editors.
- Wikipedia’s page on the COVID-19 pandemic has become a hotbed for tens of thousands of edits, with some entries covering conspiracy theories about the origin of the virus. Speculation that the virus originated in bats or a lab leak from Wuhan, China, has itself become contagious. Wikipedia has, however, managed to address the problem of misinformation about the spread of the virus on its platform, thanks to projects like Wiki Project Medicine, a community of doctors and scientists, who are working to correct misinformation.