Select Page

Talk:Shadia Abu Ghazala School massacre

It Happened

I tried to create a page for this event but it was automatically rejected. Personal opinions of Palestinians and Al Jazeera shouldn't be considered when considering rejecting an article. It was obvious the person who rejected my attempt didn't even bother watching the video.

As far as the title being a "massacre". This term is usually used when civilians are attacked for no reason, which is the case here. I have reason to believe that this was a revenge attack. Before the Israelis stormed the school, a bomb went off and killed 40 Israeli soldiers. I've seen the video and will attempt to locate it. One of my sources is from Telegram, and another from Al Jazeera. I will try to find the aftermath videos.

There is accuracy from Al Jazeera, even if there is a bias. We are expected to automatically believe the IDF even if they have been caught lying before.

Also, it is important to note that this school was named after a female terrorist who was killed by Israel. This is one reason that certain people want to deny this happened, and no one other than Al Jazeera will touch it.

Also, schools are where people go to when hiding from bombings. So it doesn't matter if there was no school in session, a large civilian building such as a school would obviously be occupied by civilians fleeing the bombing.

And Al Jazeera isn't fringe. They just show you the videos that other media doesn't want Americans to see. I will spend some time finding the article about a trap used to bomb Israeli soldiers on this same day.

FROM MY DRAFT:

“The Israeli soldiers came in and opened fire on them,” a woman at the scene said. “They took all men, then entered classrooms and opened fire on a woman and all the children with her.”

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2023/12/13/israel-hamas-war-live-world-calls-for-ceasefire-as-israel-bombards-gaza

The woman said there were newborn children among them. “The Israeli soldiers executed those innocent families at point blank,” she added. Video of the aftermath has confirmed all those killed were civilians.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FveRpSsCfOU

Silusshahi (talk) 14:46, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Silusshahi, was there anything from your draft that's still missing in the article? MWQs (talk) 13:43, 29 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I wrote my draft on day one, and it did lack some information that this article has. Silusshahi (talk) 14:03, 29 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Silusshahi, I meant the other way around. Is there anything you had in your draft that needs to be added here? MWQs (talk) 14:07, 29 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Follow up?

Is this follow up on the same incident?

Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor #Summary executions

MWQs (talk) 11:32, 24 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Move to Shadia Abu Ghazla School corpses

While witnesses claim there was a massacre, the sources could not verify it. This includes Al Jazeera and CAIR, which are both pro-Palestinian and the neutral Reuters. The only source that "confirmed" it is Euro-Med HRM which is insanely pro-Palestinian and often regarded as a Hamas front. This massacre would be extraordinary if it was real (only alleged non-battlefield massacre) yet pro-Palestinian sources couldn't confirm it and we would require neutral sources (e.g. Reuters, AP, Haaretz, The Guardian) to confirm it. Massacre is clearly POV.

Therefore, move to corpses because the only thing the sources confirm is that there were corpses at the school, not how they became corpses. Closetside (talk) 05:33, 5 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Ping @Raskolnikov.Rev who reverted my bold move. Closetside (talk) 05:34, 5 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Al Jazeera is RS and has reported on the massacre. It uses the term massacre. It interviewed multiple survivor testimonies attesting to the massacre. It reviewed videos and photos of the massacre. It says nothing about being unable to verify it. You appear to have made that up.
We go by what RS say, and your comments as to what is "insanely pro-Palestinian" are frankly not relevant. I was in the process of adding more information to the page when I saw you violated 1RR. Please revert all your edits in violation of that. Raskolnikov.Rev (talk) 05:54, 5 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Al Jazeera is pro-Palestinian, while Euro HRM insanely pro-Palestinian and is regarded by some as a Hamas front. For a "human rights organization" it does not condemn Hamas war crimes at all. It also claimed less Hamas militants dead, than Hamas itself.
Furthermore, AJ never says in its voice that Israel massacred, just witnesses who said Israel massacred. If you think I'm wrong, show me a quote because I can't find one.
I will revert back back to how it was before I found it. You can add your changes, addition is not reverting.
Per WP:EXTRAORDINARY, we need several, neutral sources, which we don't have. Closetside (talk) 06:01, 5 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
To hammer my point home, 10 months after a Hamas official told Reuters it lost 6000 soldiers www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/in-first-acknowledgement-of-significant-losses-hamas-official-says-some-6000-operatives-killed-in-gaza-fighting/, EHRM claims less than 6,000 militants were killed. euromedmonitor.org/ar/article/6577. This makes them extremely problematic in addition to the above reasons. Point is they don't count in the multiple, mainstream sources required for EXTRAORDINARY. Closetside (talk) 06:13, 5 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Both Al Jazeera and Euro-Med Monitor refer to it as a massacre. Your description of them as being "Pro-Palestinian" is, again, of no relevance here. Moreover, the massacre is described in detail by multiple witnesses to it, again per reports in AJ, Euro-Med, New Arab and Reuters. Treating eyewitness testimonies backed up by video and photo footage as mere speculation even though it's reported on in RS goes against Wikipedia policy.
Unless you have any RS that contests this massacre, we go by what RS says. Raskolnikov.Rev (talk) 07:13, 5 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Let's get a WP:3O. You did not address my points about EuroMed's extreme bias and unreliability regarding number of militant deaths or provide a quote from the AJ article stating it was a massacre in its voice. Closetside (talk) 07:33, 5 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The New Arab does not confirm Israel massacred the body. Instead, this pro-Palestinian source that accuses Israel of "a genocide in Gaza" says: "Eyewitnesses and relatives of the victims said they were shot at point-blank by Israel’s troops. The victims were reportedly killed overnight Tuesday-Wednesday, but this could not be confirmed." Seems to support my position and counter yours.
Lastly, Reuters does not confirm a massacre, it only confirmed two bodies.
In conclusion, reporting witness testimony does not imply that the reporter believes every word of it. This is true for Al Jazeera, the New Arab and Reuters.
Food for thought: if Regavim claimed "a Palestinian terrorist shot 50 primary schoolchildren dead in some primary school" and other pro-Israel sources, like the Jerusalem Post and Arutz Sheva featured witness testimony without confirming it. Still, they and the Associated Press saw the bodies of ten primary-school-age children and bullet holes in the classroom, would you support "massacre" or "attack" in the title? I wouldn't for the same reason I don't support massacre above - not enough evidence to conclude there was a massacre/militant attack. Closetside (talk) 08:02, 5 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You misread the New Arab source. When it says "but this could not be confirmed", it is referring to the preceding sentence, namely "The victims were reportedly killed overnight Tuesday-Wednesday". Throughout the piece it refers to the killings as factually established per the witness testimony and the footage of the bodies. However, as other sources also note, the timing of December 12/13 is unclear. That is why I changed it to "early December", which is used in the AJ and Reuters reports.
I did not address your claims of bias because they are not relevant. If you have a problem with AJ, Euro-Med or any other source, take it to the RS noticeboard.
Regarding testimony, if RS report on the testimony, we say that they have reported on it, and what the testimony consists of. Unless there is RS that questions the veracity of the testimony, we do not speculate about it ourselves. That is WP:SYNTH. You have not presented any RS that counters what is on the page. Raskolnikov.Rev (talk) 08:19, 5 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The New Arab does not confirm it either, only that there were bodies. If you disagree, show me a quote.
There is one source that claimed to “confirm” the massacre - the hyper-partisan, problematic EMHRM. This is not enough, especially because other pro-Palestinian and a neutral source do not say in their voice that Israel massacred the bodies. You need more sources to establish that claim per WP:EXTRAORDINARY Closetside (talk) 13:34, 5 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Good Morning, I'm here from WP:3O. I took some time to look through the discussion. The debate boils down to whether the three sources we have are WP:RS or not.
1) Al-Jazeera - WP:RSP defines this source as reliable except in relation to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: "Al Jazeera English and especially Al Jazeera Arabic are biased sources on the Arab–Israeli conflict and on topics for which the Qatari government has a conflict of interest." I think that is clear enough to argue that we shouldn't rely on Al-Jazeera solely for characterization of this incident.
2) New Arab - Unless I missed it, it never categorized this incident as a massacre. It was very cautious about the claims having not been substantiated and seems to rely on Al-Jazeera for its on the ground reporting. So this source cannot be used to label this a massacre.
3) Euro HRM - Likewise doesn't call this a massacre, I'm also not sure I would categorize them in the same category as a news site, they appear more to be an organization pushing for human rights. We should treat their specific claims with the same care we do other non-NPOV organizations.
With that said, I'd propose replacing the work "massacre" with "killings" which all three of those sources use. I'd have to review again to ensure appropriate hedge language is included given the notes I made above, but at least we can include the incident with the label used by the RS we do have.
Squatch347 (talk) 14:09, 5 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for your speedy reply.
The sources establish that there were bodies at the school. I don’t think they say that they were killed - whether by the IDF or another party - in their own voice. How about corpses to reflect what the sources say in their own voices? Closetside (talk) 15:19, 5 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure I agree with that. All three sources claim that people were killed at the school. It might be fair to add "reportedly" for a bit of a hedge given that two of them (New Arab and AJ) add pretty significant hedging language in their text. I think something like "On XX bodies of civilians were found at Shadia Abu Ghazala school, reportedly killed by Israeli forces during clearing operations." Or something to that effect.
What would you change the name of the article to?
Squatch347 (talk) 18:07, 5 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Every source (besides the hyper-partisan and dubious EuroMed has this pattern):
  1. Sees dead bodies in the school
  2. Speaks to witnesses who claim the bodies
  3. Does not confirm the bodies were killed
    4. Therefore, I stand by my original proposal. If you disagree about my assessment of no confirmation for killings, please provide the quotes from AJ, the New Arab or Reuters. Thanks! Closetside (talk) 18:21, 5 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Hi there @Squatch347, thank you for your input. I agree that adding "reportedly" is warranted here, and have gone ahead and added that to the page where relevant. Can you check if any are missing and where you believe it should be added.
    Regarding the use of "massacre", I have to disagree: WP:RSP on Al Jazeera English is not that it is biased and cannot be used as a source for the Israel-Palestine conflict. In fact, multiple RS discussions have established that it is generally reliable RS and can be used. Per the closure of the last discussion:
    WP:SNOW closed as option 1 - generally reliable for the Arab-Israeli conflict, though most seem to agree there is a bias. The standard concerns about blogs apply. About 80% of the !votes are for option 1 and the and there is no meaningful chance of any other outcome and no need to have more cycles spent on this.
    Moreover, in this instance we have multiple other outlets who independently covered the killings, including Reuters, The New Arab, and Euro-Med Monitor. Reuters conducted its own independent report, Euro-Med Monitor conducted its own investigation that it cites confirming it, and the New Arab only references Al Jazeera for the footage of the bodies.
    There are however no RS that have questioned the killings or its characterization as a massacre. If this had been the case, I would agree that given the potential bias of Al Jazeera, it would be best not adopt its language here. However, given the absence of that, and that the most detailed and significant report on the massacre comes from Al Jazeera English and as they use the term "massacre", this in my view justifies its use in the title and in the page. If we cannot obtain consensus on that, I would like to proceed to an RfC. As that proceeds, remember that the status quo of the page as it relates to this term should remain as is @Closetside. Raskolnikov.Rev (talk) 19:08, 5 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    WP:V does not ask can we not find a source that contradicts this, it asks can we find a source that supports this? And the answer is no, bearing in mind WP:NPOV requires a neutral source to name something, not a partisan source like EuroMed, Al Jazeera or the New Arab.
    About Al Jazeera, the word "massacre" is only mentioned twice in the article, one in the headline that can't be used due to WP:HEADLINE and the other distancing itself from the term:
    "What followed was a massacre, according to witnesses and families of those who were killed in the early December assault." So no, massacre is not stated by Al Jazeera in its voice.
    There is no evidence from the article the IDF caused their deaths besides for unverified witness testimony. In fact, the testimony "“In the room were my sister’s husband and next to him, their sons Maysara and Ahmed. My sister in the corner was hugging her remaining children,” Jumaa said," is contradicted by Al Jazeera's findings: "In total, at least seven bodies were found inside three different classrooms. Four were in one room, two in the second room and one was in the third." The witness alleged that at least six bodies (sister + husband + two sons + >= 2 remaining children) were found dead in one room, only found 7 in total and not more than 4 in one room. Witnesses on both sides have testified inaccurately, and this case seems to be one of them.
    The video says something similar "Exclusive video and images obtained by Al Jazeera this morning show bodies piled up inside the Shadia Abu Ghazala School in the al-Faluja area, west of the Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip.
    Witnesses said a number of people including women, children and babies were killed execution-style by Israeli forces while sheltering inside the school."
    You concede the New Arab's report is not independent. Reuters does not confirm if the bodies were killed or died another way; it just describes a witness's account, which does not verify it. Lastly, EuroMed is a hyperpartisan advocacy organization of dubious reliabity and neutrality, see above.
    Let's proceed with a renaming RfC; I agree. Closetside (talk) 20:02, 5 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    You keep repeating Euro-Med, Al Jazeera and New Arab are "insanely pro-Palestinian", "hyper-partisan", and cannot be used as RS, even though none of them are deprecated.
    All the rest is WP:SYNTH. We do not analyze testimonies and decide whether they are reliable or verified, that is what RS does, and we follow RS. We have multiple RS (including Reuters) that independently cite testimonies and do not question their reliability, but in fact bolster them by reporting they are corroborated by other testimonies and/or videos and photos (as Reuters does).
    I did not concede that New Arab's report is not independent, I did the opposite: They only reference Al Jazeera for the video footage of the bodies.
    Let's wait to see if anyone else joins the discussion for a few days and if consensus can be formed, if not I shall proceed to an RfC to resolve the matter. Raskolnikov.Rev (talk) 20:13, 5 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    EuroMed is not RS for news. See this RSN discussion: Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 425#Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor.
    Similarly, if a RS quotes someone, their quote is not reliable unless verified by the news organization. An obvious example would be “The Earth is flat” - Jim said does not mean the source concurs. Sources often quote both sides, which are usually mutually exclusive, for neutrality. I asked for verification and you can’t provide it.
    Eyewitness testimony is often problematic (see www.psychologicalscience.org/uncategorized/myth-eyewitness-testimony-is-the-best-kind-of-evidence.html). Eyewitness testimony for capital trials is scrutinized far more than one given to a friendly news reporter. My analysis above just shows why one example is problematic.
    The New Arab, Al Jazeera and Reuters do not say in their voice that the bodies were killed by the IDF. The only thing they tell us for sure is that corpses were found at the school - nothing more. Closetside (talk) 22:02, 5 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Euro-Med is not deprecated. You linked to a random discussion about it where an equal number defended it as generally reliable as said it was biased. It is in any case not relevant as Euro-Med is not the main or only source for the massacre and killings.
    Also you are once again engaging in WP:SYNTH. We do not determine the reliability of testimonies reported in RS. We go with what RS say. Your personal views on the reliability of testimonies with links to random articles in journals are of no relevance here.
    N.B., the standard for RS reporting on eyewitness testimonies is not to add explicit "we verified this independently" additions. That is rarely if ever done. If that is the standard we went by, and you went by, you would have to delete significant portions of entire pages that rely solely on RS reporting on Israeli testimonies without any clarification of their veracity being independently confirmed by them. If I were to come across you doing that, I would challenge that as well for the same reason.
    It is evident that you do not only seek to change the title of the page, but also the content of the page to remove any reference to the killings as reported by the witnesses in the RS, as is made clear on the page as it currently is.
    I suggest you also start a separate talk discussion ahead of a separate RfC on that question with your suggested edits. Raskolnikov.Rev (talk) 22:31, 5 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    The advice given for EM was: Use it with attribution, as should be done for all NGOs and non-profits (and all government bodies in addition).
    Find me one article where the sole evidence is Israeli testimony and the article name is based on what the witness claimed. I can’t find one. Closetside (talk) 22:42, 5 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    It is used with attribution on the page. Also there are many sections and pages on for example the Israeli hostages relying primarily or solely on testimonies in RS without the explicit note that they were independently verified. They should not be removed. It is also not true that the name is solely based on multiple witness testimonies independently cited in multiple RS, though that by itself would suffice given that there is no contestation by any RS. Videos and photos also confirmed it, as did an investigation by Euro-Med.
    We're going around in circles here, so let's wait for additional input, and if that fails to get consensus, I'll move ahead with an RfC in a few days, or you can. Just make sure to neutrally present the options and link to the discussion. Is that alright? Raskolnikov.Rev (talk) 22:54, 5 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I am fine with testimonies, just attributed. Videos and photos prove the presence of bodies, not how they were killed. EuroMed's investigation is not sufficient, because NGOs and government orgs should be used with attribution per the RSN discussion I cited above. We only know there were corpses - not how they were killed. And the article should be based on what we definitely know.Closetside (talk) 22:59, 5 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I think the strong consensus in that thread was that AJ is reliable for factual matters, even in the Arab-Israeli conflict, but that their interpretation and characterization is questionable. They even reference an incident very, very similar to this one as a good example of questionable interpretation.
    The source we use is certainly fine for a lot of the details of the reporting and what was found, ie the factual matters, but I think I'm in line with the SNOW closure in saying that the interpretations of those facts and the characterization of them is tenuous, especially when we don't have other, independent sources, characterizing it that way.
    I don't think we can throw out the source or the discovery of bodies or reporting on killings, just that we need to be a bit cautious in how this is labelled or characterized without a stronger citation source.
    Squatch347 (talk) 14:37, 6 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    Requested move 6 March 2025

    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.

    Shadia Abu Ghazala School massacre → Shadia Abu Ghazala School corpses – No source, besides the dubious EuroMed RSN recommends not to rely on for facts, says that Israel massacred the bodies. The only clear thing is that the corpses were found in the school. While witness testimony provided by the sources does claim an Israeli massacre, witness testimony is not inherently reliable and the testimony was not verified by the sources. See the above discussion where I extensively has out my rationale. Closetside (talk) 05:51, 6 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    • Support, in part. I do think the article's title needs to be changed from massacre for the reasons I've listed above. I think sanitizing it to bodies goes a bit too far. I will note that none of our RSP sources except AJ categorize this as a massacre (and there is an RSP finding encouraging caution in AJ's portrayal of Palestinian/Israeli events), but all do include interviews and/or characterize the killings as having happened at the school. I would support renaming to "Shadia Abu Ghazala School Killings" or something equivalent like "Deaths." Squatch347 (talk) 14:46, 6 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      I'm fine with deaths. The sources have said definitely, through their own investigations, that there were dead bodies, not that they were killed. Closetside (talk) 15:26, 6 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • Oppose I laid out my reasoning in detail in the discussion, which is in summary: Al Jazeera is RS and has reported on the massacre. It uses the term massacre. It interviewed multiple survivor testimonies attesting to the massacre. It reviewed videos and photos of the massacre. Additional RS also independently reported on the massacre, with testimonies, videos and images being reviewed, and an investigation being conducted confirming it: Reuters, The New Arab, Euro-Med Monitor. What is dispositive to me is that there is not a single RS questioning the veracity of these reports. Introducing that ourselves with the proposed name change is in my view blatant WP:SYNTH. Raskolnikov.Rev (talk) 01:12, 7 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      This boils down to a fundamental disagreement - is providing testimony without verifying it or refuting it considered support by a source. @Raskolnikov.Rev says yes, I say no. However, while this may be construed as indirect support, it is not direct support - direct support would require verifying it or otherwise restating the witness's claims in its voice.
      Based on policy, my approach is correct. Per WP:CONTEXTMATTERS: Sources should directly support the information as it is presented in the Wikipedia article.
      With that I rest my case. Closetside (talk) 02:34, 7 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      Multiple RS independently reported direct testimonies from multiple eyewitnesses that corroborated each other, they further added that they reviewed videos and images that corroborate the testimonies, and an investigation was conducted that established the massacre happened.
      Not a single RS has been presented that questions the veracity of any of this, so per WP:CONTEXTMATTERS, WP:RS and WP:NPOV, we must follow what the consensus of the RS in the article say and keep the title as is.
      With that, I rest my case. Raskolnikov.Rev (talk) 02:39, 7 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      Quoting witnesses, no matter how many is immaterial because it's not direct support.
      From Al Jazeera: "Videos and images obtained by AlJazeera showed bodies discovered on December 13 piled up inside the school." Bodies piled inside the school does not confirm the claim Israel massacred them - it just doesn't.
      From pro-Palestinian the New Arab: "The bodies of more than a dozen Palestinians reportedly shot dead by Israeli forces were found at a school in the northern Gaza Strip on Wednesday." Explicit non-confirmation of the claim Israel shot them.
      Reuters didn't confirm the witness' testimony - it posted it without supporting or opposition. Posting testimony without verification isn't support - it just isn't.
      RSN says EuroMed, like all other government orgs and NGOs should be cited with attribution, not used as RS for news per RSN. I posted it above - I'm losing patience.
      And I'm the one doing WP:SYNTH? This is the kettle calling the [non-black] pot black. With that, I truly rest my case. Closetside (talk) 02:58, 7 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      Once again there is a clear display of WP:SYNTH: Al Jazeera cites multiple direct eyewitness testimonies of the massacre, uses the term massacre, then corroborates that with videos and images. Independently, other RS do the same, including Reuters, The New Arab (which @Closetside attempts to devalue by calling it "pro-Palestinian" even though it is not deprecated), and Euro-Med Monitor (which is cited with attribution, and is RS for investigations it conducted in this matter).
      This is the only RS on the page. There is no RS questioning the veracity of these mutually corroborating testimonies, further corroborated by the videos and images and the investigation.
      The WP:SYNTH then comes in the form of taking out of context parts from each report and arguing that it is not convincing because testimonies are inherently unreliable (a standard this editor has not employed in any other context), the videos and images are immaterial because who knows who killed the people as we can't trust the testimonies, they're all "insanely pro-Palestinian", and so on.
      So I repeat again, : per WP:CONTEXTMATTERS, WP:RS and WP:NPOV, we must follow what the consensus of the RS in the article say and keep the title as is. Raskolnikov.Rev (talk) 03:50, 7 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      I think you might be equivocating two things. Because all the sources report on killings (and it does seem they are all using the same interviews except Reuters which appears to have done its own) does not mean that they all have labelled this a massacre. All of our sources have attested to the facts of the incident as they can discover them. Only Al Jazeera has categorized those facts into the claim of a massacre. Those are two different things and the fact that Reuters reports the interviews about killings is not an agreement that it was a massacre.
      Because all the sources report on the deaths during an attack does not mean that all of them call it a massacre. Those are two different statements and Wiki should not be favoring the more incendiary term when the only source we have in support is a source we note is biased in this context.
      That is why labeling it "killing" (a more NPOV term and the term used by the majority of our sources) is more appropriate per WP:NPOV and WP:DUE. We can give due weight to the accounts reported in our sources with the proper attribution, just like our sources did.
      Squatch347 (talk) 13:51, 7 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I would support anything that does not include "corpses" or "massacre". Massacre shouldn't be used anywhere unless it is the clear commonname as a non-neutral title. However, "corpses" is a very bad title. PARAKANYAA (talk) 02:54, 7 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • Oppose move to "bodies", strong support "massacre" - Having read the discussion, checked the article and its sources, and searched for more on the topic and having found additional sources, I have to agree with @Raskolnikov.Rev that we should follow what the RS say, and they refer to the massacre in no uncertain terms, with testimonies that are treated as credible (why else report on them?) and corroborated by other testimonies and video/photo material.
    From the RS currently on the page detailing the massacre:
    Al Jazeera: The footage shows traces of blood and remnants of the victims’ belongings that were with them before they were killed, while bullets had pierced the classroom walls where bodies were found. Saeed Jumaa’s sister was among those killed along with her husband and children.
    Displaced families were sheltering in the United Nations-run Shadia Abu Ghazala School west of the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza when Israeli soldiers entered the building. What followed was a massacre, according to witnesses and families of those who were killed in the early December assault.
    Videos and images obtained by Al Jazeera showed bodies discovered on December 13 piled up inside the school. Since then, survivors of the attack, and family members of the victims who have returned to the school to look for their loved ones, have come forward to recount the horror of those moments.
    Witnesses said several people, including women, children and babies, were killed execution-style by Israeli forces while they were sheltering inside the school.
    Reuters: When the Israeli soldiers entered the Gaza school where Yousef Khalil was sleeping near his family, they began shooting indiscriminately, killing nine people including children, he said, pointing to bullet-pocked, bloodstained walls
    When the survivors returned a week later, the bodies remained where they had died, he said. Reuters footage of the school filmed Dec. 13-15 showed ruined classrooms, at least two corpses on the floor of indeterminate age, bloodied bedding, and bullet holes and bloodstains low to the ground.
    The New Arab: The bodies of more than a dozen Palestinians reportedly shot dead by Israeli forces were found at a school in the northern Gaza Strip on Wednesday.
    Euro-Med Monitor, December 13: Around 15 dead Palestinians’ decomposed bodies were found in Al-Falujah neighbourhood, west of the Jabalia camp. Based upon its initial investigation, Euro-Med Monitor confirmed that the individuals were subjected to field executions while being questioned by members of the Israeli army at the Shadia Abu Ghazaleh government school. “We were shocked to discover 15 bodies after the Israeli forces left the school,” Muhammad Jalal, 37, told the Euro-Med Monitor team. “It was obvious that they were directly shot, and some of them had their bodies disintegrated due to the heavy gunfire."
    Additional sources I found that also establish this:
    The Daily Telegraph: "There’s no sign of any missiles or shells. All those who were in the building were executed from point blank,” one man, who was among those that found the bodies, said.
    Lemkin Institute: Witnesses have also reported that Israeli soldiers shot displaced people at point-blank range at the Shadia Abu Ghazala School in the northern al-Faluja area.
    Independent Commission for Human Rights: ICHR, based on eyewitness testimonies, has followed the Israeli army's execution of unarmed civilians in various areas of the Gaza Strip, especially in the northern region, as occurred in the Beit Lahia project at Halab School, Shadia Abu Ghazaleh School in Jabalia, and in Al-Awda residential building in the Rimal district of central Gaza City. In more than one case, citizens were killed despite raising white flags, which indicates a code of conduct and instructions adopted by the occupying soldiers that blatantly violated international norms and conventions.
    ICHR has also documented repeated attacks on displacement centers, especially in Gaza and the north, where they were invaded by the occupying forces, resulting in the arrest of hundreds and the execution of civilians, as happened in Shadia Abu Ghazaleh School shelter in Jabalia. After the Israeli forces withdrew from the area on December 13th, nine bodies, including women and children, were found. In some cases, the occupying forces looted money and personal belongings of the displaced, including confiscating women's gold in several instances.
    Euro-Med Monitor, December 25: In a testimony about what happened, an elderly man called Youssef Khalil told Euro-Med Monitor that after Israeli forces stormed the school, two soldiers opened fire directly at his family members while they were in one of the classrooms.
    Khalil pointed out that after his family members were killed, Israeli soldiers arrested him along with otherPalestinian civilians and held them for several days, during which he was subjected to beatings and torture before his eventual release.
    After the Israeli forces withdrew from the vicinity of the school where they were stationed for a week, Khalil returned to the building only to find the bodies of his family members in an advanced state of decomposition. Among the victims were a woman, her husband, and several of their children, Khalil said.
    Video clips filmed at the school between 13 and 15 December and obtained by Euro-Med Monitor show classrooms that have been damaged, at least two bodies on the ground, and a number of other bodies, including a woman’s body, as well as a mattress soaked in blood, bullet holes, and blood stains on the ground.
    The massacre is not only extensively corroborated by multiple eyewitness testimonies across various RS – none of which question their veracity – but also by videos/photos obtained by the RS showing bullet-riddled bodies.
    There are however no RS presented to contest the massacre. No such material is present in the article. So the consensus in RS is that there was a massacre of Palestinians at the school, and the title must reflect this.
    Reducing the massacre to "corpses" when all the material in the article is about the massacre as there is no RS that contests it violates WP:CRITERIA of precision and consistency. In no other circumstance where every RS says that a massacre occurred would we question it based on our own WP:SYNTH claims about the reliability of the RS reporting and the...ontological reliability of testimonies. Smallangryplanet (talk) 21:11, 7 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    As I mentioned above, the fact that there were killings is well supported by quite a few RS sources. But only one, one with an RSP caution for bias on this subject calls it a massacre. Updating to the "Shadia Abu Ghazala School killings" would seem more warranted. Notice that that language (or attack more frequently) is used in every other source we have.
    Squatch347 (talk) 21:26, 7 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    WP:NCENPOV is very clear about this to avoid massacre. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 20:18, 10 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Per WP:INTEXT, in-text attributions imply doubt. If a statement is verified to be factual is not cited in-text. Same goes for actual reliable sources. Because the testimony is cited to the witnesses, there is doubt. This makes sense; the source could not verify the testimony.
    The ICHR does say Israel massacred in its voice, though it is exactly like EuroMed; an anti-Israel NGO which despite styling itself as a human rights organization, has no words of condemnation for Hamas war crimes against Israelis. Per the RSN discussion, NGOs are cited with attribution and do not count for NPOV.
    There is no evidence Israel killed those Palestinians from those sources - just unverified witness testimony. Those Palestinians were probably killed - natural death seems very unlikely. The new name and article must reflect that. Closetside (talk) 01:22, 9 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    In favour of Shadia Abu Ghazala School killings, but not massacre. If Al Jazeera of all sources is refusing to call it a massacre in their own voice, then it's not the WP:COMMONNAME. Per WP:POVNAMING, "massacre" is not an appropriate descriptive title. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 19:57, 10 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • Support killings massacre is a POV title, for which the majority of use is either attributed, used by source with strong bias or disputed/unclear reliability (Euro-Med, Lemkin), or both. As such, there seems to be strong evidence of killings (and therefore corpses), an at best uncertain legal status, and no clear COMMONNAME argument in favour of massacre, even within the sources presented by @Smallangryplanet. Therefore, killings or an equivalent neutral term is the only title compliant with the PAGs.
    FortunateSons (talk) 11:05, 18 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • Support massacre For the ample reasons provided by @Smallangryplanet and @Raskolnikov.Rev. I should also like to reiterate the point I made recently in another discussion concerning the use of "massacre" in a title, regarding the structural bias in media reporting concerning massacres of Palestinians, and the fact that nevertheless the term is used in reliable sources is particularly indicative of its accuracy and why we ought to follow it:
    A final point I want to add for everyone's consideration: Analyses of media coverage of the Israel-Gaza War have shown that there is a structural bias against Palestinians, with mass killings of them typically not referred to with language such as "massacre" despite it meeting the standard for their usage of it in other contexts: Highly emotive terms for the killing of civilians like “slaughter,” “massacre,” and “horrific” were reserved almost exclusively for Israelis who were killed by Palestinians, rather than the other way around. (When the terms appeared in quotes rather than the editorial voice of the publication, they were omitted from the analysis) The term “slaughter” was used by editors and reporters to describe the killing of Israelis versus Palestinians 60 to 1, and “massacre” was used to describe the killing of Israelis versus Palestinians 125 to 2. “Horrific” was used to describe the killing of Israelis versus Palestinians 36 to 4.
    Another study with a similar finding: We found that “murder”, “murderous”, “mass murder”, “brutal murder” and “merciless murder” were used a total of 52 times by journalists to refer to Israelis’ deaths but never in relation to Palestinian deaths. The same pattern could been seen in relation to “massacre”, “brutal massacre” and “horrific massacre” (35 times for Israeli deaths, not once for Palestinian deaths); “atrocity”, “horrific atrocity” and “appalling atrocity” (22 times for Israeli deaths, once for Palestinian deaths); and “slaughter” (five times for Israeli deaths, not once for Palestinian deaths).
    And there are many more. Yet despite this structural bias, the RS that focus on the massacre aspect of the event use that term to describe it. This to me is dispositive about it's inclusion in the title. Lf8u2 (talk) 05:39, 27 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    Support "massacre": Smallangryplanet has provided enough evidence to justify use of the term "massacre". The term "executions" also appears in multiple sources, so "Shadia Abu Ghazala School executions" would also be fine. The term "massacre" is a good fit for the incident. Burrobert (talk) 06:24, 11 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    Support killings: It looks like the only source which uses the term "massacre" may be Al Jazeera and per the list of perennial sources, they're generally biased on I/P topics. So we shouldn't use it to determine the title.

    Most editors seem to agree that Al Jazeera English and especially Al Jazeera Arabic are biased sources on the Arab–Israeli conflict.[1]

    Whether this article is kept or merged after the deletion discussion the overall title should be adjusted to reflect what non-biased sources say, and Reuters says "killings". -- Bob drobbs (talk) 21:20, 28 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    Oppose "corpses" is a really bad choice. It doesn't sound natural and it is unnecessarily vague. I don't think the current title has neutrality issues, since it is not identifying any perpetrator. And it seems that nobody is contesting the fact that these people died in unlawful circumstances. Also there is a current AfD so the wise choice would be to wait for its results before arguing here. Paprikaiser (talk) 21:26, 31 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    This RM predated the AfD and massacre is a POV word per WP:NDESC. Closetside (talk) 02:59, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • Oppose. "corpses" seems an awkward choice and sounds unnecessarily unexplained/unexplainable.The word massacre will certainly continue to be challenged but it is used in reliable sources. -Mushy Yank. 00:35, 6 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    Discussion

    • Looks like there is a weak consensus for changing the title to "Killings" with a strong consensus not to use bodies. Five editors support killings in some sort while two oppose changing from anything that isn't massacre. Squatch347 (talk) 12:42, 18 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Raskolnikov.Rev, Smallangryplanet, Lf8u2 and I support "Massacre". The closing editor will also consider the arguments for each choice. Burrobert (talk) 11:54, 27 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    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.