Talk:Battle of Ayta ash-Shab

Removed sentence
I have removed a sentence unsupported by the source:

"According to interrogated Hizbullah militant the vicinity of the village was used for rocket attacks against Israel"

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/05/world/middleeast/05mideast.html?pagewanted=print

In the source that the NYT is referring to the following is claimed:


 * "The testimony of Muhammad Abd al-Hamid Srour


 * 20. According to Muhammad Abd al-Hamid Srour, an operative in Hezbollah’s anti-tank unit from the village of Aita al-Shaab, Hezbollah’s arms and ammunition were stored in the villagers’ houses. He said that the house owners were not always aware of the precise contents of Hezbollah’s storehouses (that is, Hezbollah turned the residents into a living shield without their knowledge or consent, which constitutes a warcrime).
 * 21. He related that Hezbollah’s official centers in the village such as the culture center” or the “administrative center” held no arms and ammunition since, in Hezbollah’s assessment, such places could become targets for the IDF’s attacks.
 * 22. According to Muhammad Srour, most of the village residents left as the fighting began. During the fighting, anti-tank missiles were smuggled into the village inside backpacks carried by operatives, dressed in civilian clothes and riding a motorcycle with a white flag. It should be noted that the use of a white flag to grant immunity to combat activity or to pose for a civilian or humanitarian element constitutes a war crime."

The testimony concerns the smuggling of anti-tank missiles for the defence of the town and not of Katyusha rockets for attacking Israel.

Jokkmokks-Goran (talk) 22:14, 5 September 2013 (UTC)


 * No, there is no claims in the NYT article that "the vicinity of the village was used for rocket attacks against Israel". It only mentions one guy "transporting missiles... in and around the southern village of Aita al Shaab" and another guy who "set up a rocket-firing position on the front porch of a house on the outskirts of Aita al Shaab". The NYT does not elaborate any further. There is no mention in the article about these rockets/missiles ever being used.
 * In the original source - quoted above - it is however made clear that both individuals where active in a Hizbullah anti-tank missile unit and not a Katyusha launching unit.
 * I therefore once again remove the paragraph.Jokkmokks-Goran (talk) 15:33, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

Disruptive editing
I am reverting recent disruptive edits made by Avaya1 (talk) on this and several other Wikipedia articles.

Avaya1 made 5 massive changes in 7 minutes to 2006 Lebanon War, then spent 2 minutes making changes on Operation Change of Direction 11, 1 minute on Battle of Bint Jbeil and a further 2 minutes on Battle of Ayta ash-Shab.

The changes were whole-sale deletions of all the additions made after a particular date, selected for unclear reasons. Some of the changes he deleted had been agreed upon by other editors in talk page discussions. A lot of well-sourced material has been deleted. In the case of Battle of Bint Jbeil meticulously added references has been deleted and replaced with. None of the changes were explained in summaries or in talkpages. Avaya1 has previously made intermittent contributions to 2006 Lebanon War but has not previously been involved in the editing of the other articles.

Any well-sourced addition to this article is welcome as are deletions if they are clearly explained in the talkpage. I return the page to where it was before Avaya1's deletions.

Jokkmokks-Goran (talk) 21:44, 7 October 2013 (UTC)

Editing by Shrike (talk)
Why do you remove the list of 28 named Israeli fatalities (based on official Israeli sources) then reduce the total Israeli casualties to 7 based on a single source: Arkin. Which is clearly wrong. Most of the clashes that led to the 28 IDF fatalities are anyhow mentioned in the article, with proper sources (often Israeli newspapers).

Why do you add clearly misleading information?

Jokkmokks-Goran (talk) 17:37, 10 August 2014 (UTC)
 * I edited according to the sources. Arkin that is used in the article quite clearly stated the number of the dead also you restored the names of the dead in circumvention of WP:NOTMEMORIAL and added various unsourced statements and weasel words.I am tagging the article for numerous problems--Shrike (talk)/WP:RX 19:28, 10 August 2014 (UTC)


 * Having a list of fatalities is standard procedure in Wikipedia. It doesn't violate WP:NOTMEMORIAL. I'm using official Israeli sources and that counts to 28 killed, not 7 as Arkin claims. If you read Arkin's own text you may notice that he himself mentions 8 IDF fatalities. His other discrepancies  are easily checked against the list in the article. If you insist on keeping 7 IDF killed in the battle please indicate which 21 of the 28 named soldiers in the list who did not die in the battle.


 * When I corrected this fault you tagged the article for lack of factual accuracy and neutrality! Arkin's numbers are not reliable. He also claims that 12 civilians were killed and that the IDF estimate for HA fatalities in the battle was 40 although he provides no sources for these numbers and they do not tally with any other sources.


 * Weasel words? Unsourced statements? Where? You have to be more specific.


 * Jokkmokks-Goran (talk) 22:27, 10 August 2014 (UTC)


 * It does please explain how those persons are notable except their death in the battle(and I am not sure that they died in the battle at all as it not clear from the sources).If Arkin is not reliable why it used in the article at all? .You counting is WP:OR we should follow what sources say.I will tag the problematic pieces in the article.--Shrike (talk)/WP:RX 04:08, 11 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Also per WP:CLAIM we shouldn't use this loaded term in the article please fix it.--Shrike (talk)/WP:RX 04:45, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

A. You have tagged the article with disputed neutrality and factual accuracy but have failed to explain any reason for doing so.

Please explain your actions or remove the tags.

B. You want to change words like “fighter” or “guerilla” for the armed elements of Hizbullah to “militant”. You claim that the former terms contradict WP:TERROR. But it’s actually the other way around. The former terms are more neutral and are in fact used by most western media, including Israeli (see below under point C4). “Militant” is a highly value-laden term and usually negatively so.
 * Though militants is widely used in the media I would agree to fighter as general term.--Shrike (talk)/WP:RX 17:06, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

C. You have tagged four paragraphs with ”citation needed” although they have all reliable and often multiple sources.

1) “28 killed (IDF claim)”

See next point

2) “The IDF admitted 28 killed (of which five were officers) in 33 days of fighting in and around the town (including five at the border on the July 12, thirteen inside the town and ten in the nearby village of Dibil).”

We have multiple sources – all supplied in the article – for each of the eight clashes in the area of Ayta ash-Sha’b (including nearby Dibil) involving a total 28 IDF fatalities. Of course, the original source for all these secondary sources is the IDF itself.

The list of named IDF fatalities is based on the overall war fatality list published in the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs "Israel-Hizbullah conflict: Victims of rocket attacks and IDF casualties". All but four of these are explicitly linked to this area in the MFA list. The exceptions being the last four killed on Aug 13. But we know from multiple other sources (i e Arkin, Haaretz) that four IDF tank soldiers were killed by a missile in Ayta that day.

Secondly, if you bother to read through the main text of the article you may notice that it mentions each of the eight separate clashes were IDF suffered its 28 fatalities. All are covered by other reliable sources than the MFA list (mainly Israeli newspapers).

If you seriously doubt that any of these clashes or fatalities ever occurred (“I am not sure that they died in the battle at all”) '''please specify exactly which of these clashes/deaths you dispute happened as described by the sources. '''

So how come Arkin only comes up with 7 IDF fatalities? First, Arkin’s calculation covers only three of the eight deadly clashes in this area that were reported by the IDF and other sources. Secondly, if you read through Arkin’s own text you may notice that his own detailed numbers actually adds up to 8, not 7 (3 + 1 + 4).
 * If Arkin ia not reliable why we should use it all? If we decide that is WP:RS then we should use it and don't selectively pick information.Moreover why we should include battles in nearby areas we should only include battle inside the town including battle in Dibil and other battles is WP:OR and WP:UNDUE--Shrike (talk)/WP:RX 17:06, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

3) “Most of the other civilian fatalities seem to have occurred before the ground war started”

According to a reliable Lebanese source (providing a list of names) only 7 civilians were killed in this battle (other less reliable sources quote higher numbers without providing any verifiable details or original sources).

The article already has a source (HRW) claiming that 6 civilians were killed Aug. 19-21. Ground fighting inside the town started July 31. That leaves room for only one more civilian fatality after the ground war started.

'''Please specify what other source do you need. '''
 * This your WP:OR if you want to include this statement.Your source should state it.--Shrike (talk)/WP:RX 17:06, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

4) “Less than a dozen mainly local fighters killed (Western, Israeli and Lebanese sources”

This sentence is a summary of 7 (seven!) different sources (two Lebanese, one British, three American and one Israeli) making very consistent claims:


 * Lebanese newspaper as-Safir published a list of names containing 11 local and non-local fighters who were killed in Ayta during the 2006 war, as well as that of an Ayta resident who died elsewhere.
 * The webpage of the municipality of Ayta ash-Sha’b recently published a poster with the names and pictures of the 9 local "martyrs" of Ayta ash-Sha’b (including the individual who did not die in Ayta).
 * British newspaper Socialist Worker claimed that eight “local fighters” had died.
 * Washington Post claimed that “eight Hezbollah guerrillas” had died in the battle.
 * McClatchy Newspapers claimed that nine “fighters” had died in the battle.
 * Nir Rosen in Mother Jones claimed that nine “local fighters” were killed.
 * Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth claimed that “around ten residents of the town were killed fighting in battles, in addition to other fighters who arrived at the scene.”

The small discrepancy (8-11) between all these sources is probably explained by whether you count only locals killed in Ayta battle (8) or total Ayta losses in the war (including fatalities in other battles) (9) or total losses in the Ayta battle itself (including outsiders) (11).

You have previously argued that the formulation of Yedioth is consistent with a total of 40 HA fatalities (10 local and 30 from outside). This may be true from a technical point of view. But it is pure conjecture to assume this. I don’t understand why a center-right Israeli newspaper would like to cover up this fact. I have no doubt that if there really was an Israeli estimate of 40 HA fatalities, Yedioth would have used it. Remember that Arkin is completely alone with this claim and provides no sources. Israeli semi-official Ehrlich’s study is completely agnostic as to the number of HA fatalities in Ayta.
 * We might know how local fighters died but we have no way to know how many not local died.The sources that your brought talks only about local the question of how many non local.So we should remove mainly
 * Also the phrase (Western, Israeli and Lebanese sources”) is not backed by any source its your own [[WP:OR[[



'''Shrike, I ask you to address all the points raised in this post or remove your tags and cease with your disruptive editing. '''
 * Please read WP:NPA--Shrike (talk)/WP:RX 17:06, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

PS For links to different sources cited above please see notes in article.

Jokkmokks-Goran (talk) 08:35, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

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Defensive Hezbollah victory, tactical Israeli defeat
If Israel failed to capture the town then we can conclude that the battle of Ayta ash-Shab was indeed a defensive Hezbollah victory and a tactical Israeli defeat/failure.

VendixDM (talk) 23:20, 5 April 2018 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 25 March 2023
There are wrong things in the page Davidreznov (talk) 09:50, 25 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Red question icon with gradient background.svg Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. &#128156; melecie   talk  - 10:19, 25 March 2023 (UTC)

The Result
Why does it say "Israel failed to capture the town" instead of "Hezbollah victory"? Those things are synonymous, and the latter is more widely used. Haskko (talk) 14:40, 7 July 2023 (UTC)