Talk:Kidnapping of the Bibas family

Held by "another group"
The family were not held by Hamas. They were held by "another group", reliable sources all refused to be any more specific than that.

This is from memory from what I've read over the last few months, I'll try to find some sources to follow up, but hopefully this is enough information to help others find some if I get interrupted before I manage to rediscover them..

I think wiki has a policy of "veritable rather than true"? but we should at least try to avoid saying things that are false? And not being held by Hamas is a key element of the story. Most other women and children were released early. Part of the problem with getting this family home seemed to be that the secular factions were not participating in some of the early negotiations, only Hamas and Islamic Jihad (PIJ) showed up.

There are probably reliable tertiary sources (e.g. "The Guardian says that Haaretz says, that someone directly involved says…") saying that the child was "the youngest held by Hamas" but that is a case of the story getting distorted in retellings.

Several sources that are generally very reliable imply they were held by Hamas, by describing all ~250 hostages as held by Hamas, e.g. this list in Haaretz gives a one sentence description covering all ~250 hostages, but that is an over simplification. It is also possibly an issue of being out of date. That Haaretz list has updated some details for individuals, but kept the simplified version to describe the group.

The complexity of the situation didn't become apparent until Hamas showed up at negotiations, with PIJ who claimed to have a few dozen of the hostages themselves, but then neither group claimed to be holding the last few. Even the IDF repeated the "held by another group" story as fact, and anything those two opponents both agree on is as true as we can ever feasibly know.

It is plausible that they were initially kidnapped by Hamas, and then handed over to the other group, that was the IDF story, but I'm a bit sceptical of it. Include it if you want, but it needs a source that says they were "handed over to the other group" not just a source saying "over 200 hostages taken by Hamas", because the difficult situation this family were in does not fit in the one line summary trying to cover all the hostages.

18:33, 1 January 2024 (UTC) Irtapil (talk) 18:33, 1 January 2024 (UTC) updated Irtapil (talk) 06:43, 4 January 2024 (UTC)


 * At least three separate groups had hostages, Hamas, Islamic Jihad (PIJ), and at least one other group. In the current citation the sentence supporting "youngest held by Hamas" contains a hyperlink to another article that only has preliminary information. This is not an appropriate source to support Hamas being the group who held these specific hostages, because it only lists one of the 3+ groups who held hostages. Irtapil (talk) 00:28, 2 January 2024 (UTC)


 * This article "Hamas, Islamic Jihad: Holding Hostages is a War Crime" points out that other groups had some of the hostages, it says at least 30 were held by Islamic Jihad and uses the plural for "other groups". Irtapil (talk) 00:36, 2 January 2024 (UTC)
 * In this article from Times of Israel the IDF claim that the family were originally captured by Hamas and then transferred to another group, "The Bibas family, including baby Kfir who is now 10 months old, was transferred by Hamas to another Palestinian terror group in Gaza, the military said Monday, dampening hopes of their release during the current truce." The Times of Israel paraphrases the tweet, but the original says kidnapped by Hamas and held by "one of the factions". Irtapil (talk) 00:57, 2 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Actually, why was that in the lead at all? it's contradicted twice later in the page. Irtapil (talk) 10:53, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

Use of wrong description
why use the word "militants" when "terrorists" is a better description? 77.137.10.226 (talk) 05:24, 6 January 2024 (UTC)


 * Agreed absolutely. No room for political correctness. Nirva20 (talk) 21:51, 18 February 2024 (UTC)

4 deaths?
Why does it say 4 deaths in the infobox? Only 2 deaths confirmed in article (Shiri's parents). Nirva20 (talk) 04:04, 18 February 2024 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 24 April 2024
the Palestinian Islamist terror organization Hamas 31.154.46.218 (talk) 07:16, 24 April 2024 (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. Cannolis (talk) 07:35, 24 April 2024 (UTC)