Israel's genocide in Gaza becomes a Wikipedia fact

Wikipedia editors from different parts of the world have voted to refer to Israel's war as 'Gaza genocide' and include it as an entry on the online encyclopedia website

That is in line with what the wider expert community has been saying, says Haaretz.

Right after October 7, when Israel began bombing the Palestinian enclave, an entry went up on Wikipedia that referred to the destruction as "Allegations of genocide"

According to Haaretz, the editors' vote was highly influenced by the consensus among Holocaust historians, Genocide Scholars and international law experts that Israel is indeed committing genocide in Gaza.

At first, the page relied on just five sources of information and the opponents had termed the sourcing as problematic and biased. But soon, contributors to the entry started to corroborate more evidence from Israeli politicians who were vying with each other to make extremely violent statements by calling for genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.

Corroborating evidence

Perhaps the biggest evidence of Israeli genocide is the killing of nearly 40,000 Palestinians — mostly women and children — and the bombing of hospitals, schools and even refugee camps. Social media is full of pictures and videos of charred and dismembered Palestinian children.

Yet Israeli officials and media continue to undermine Israel's crimes against humanity by insisting in news articles and reports that the death toll figure comes from the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry.

Israel politicians who have openly called for the genocide of Palestinians have been sourced on the Wikipedia page, including Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu, who had said that "a nuclear bomb should be dropped on Gaza".

Another minister, Yitzhak Kroizer, called for Gaza "to be flattened" while Agriculture Minister and security cabinet member Avi Dichter called for a "Nakba in Gaza," referring to the mass exodus and expulsion of Palestinians that occurred in 1948-49 with the establishment of the state of Israel.

These statements were then extrapolated, found valid and in the actions of Israeli forces in Gaza. According to the Wikipedia page, most of the public statements made by Israeli politicians translated into genocidal actions.

For example, a claim directed at Israel that it is deliberately starving displaced Palestinians in Gaza, and has been denying them access to water was corroborated when Foreign Minister Israel Katz, who was the energy minister at the time, ordered Gaza's water supply be cut off at the start of the war, and later said that "Gaza would be without electricity and water and fuel until the hostages are returned."

Later this translated into genocidal actions as reports from credible humanitarian agencies and other organisations indicated an actual shortage of fuel, water and food.