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Talk:2024 Lebanon electronic device attacks

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Confusing language in 'injuries section'

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Hi

I've found something in the injuries section which are unclear. I don't know much about the topic so I'm leaving my comments here and hopefully someone who knows more can address it. It currently reads "An unnamed Hezbollah official told Reuters 1,500 Hezbollah fighters were taken out of action by injuries". 'Taken out of action' isn't a very clear way of describing the injuries, the source states 'many having been blinded or had their hands blown off', so perhaps 'maimed' would make more sense?

Thanks

John Cummings (talk) 12:11, 10 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

FWIW, the source says they were put out of commission [1]. Alaexis¿question? 22:09, 10 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure how DUE this is to include given we its an anonymous tip. By contrast the 4,000 civilians statement was publicly made by a Lebanese cabinet minister[2][3].VR (Please ping on reply) 22:10, 6 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Misleading description of "civilians" in lead paragraph leaving out important info

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"The attack killed at least 42 people, including at least 12 civilians, and injured around 4,000 civilians, according to the Lebanese government."

This is misleading and leads the reader to assume 4000 Lebanese civilians, unaffiliated with Hezbollah, were injured. It should be edited to state that according to the Lebanese government, the attack injured 4,000 members of Hezbollah, including those who held various non-combatant roles within the organization. Those who were issued pagers, were affiliated with Hezbollah in some shape or form. This should be made clear instead of plainly stating "4000 civilians". The citations throughout this page supports this assertion, and in fact is stated clearly in other later parts of this article.2600:4808:6395:1200:CCB4:B7BD:DC89:DABA (talk) 21:57, 6 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It is not possible to know what readers assume from a statement attributed to the Lebanese government so there is no point talking about that. And the statement "The citations throughout this page supports this assertion, and in fact is stated clearly in other later parts of this article" does not appear to be consistent with the Deaths and injuries section. Sean.hoyland (talk) 06:01, 7 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I concede that the statement is attributed to the Lebanese government, and as such does not need any context provided the direct citation. On that, I stand corrected.
However, for the wiki page to not further inform the reader that pagers were held by members of hezbollah is withholding factual, accurate, and reported information and should be provided to the reader as much as the statement by the Lebanese government was provided to the reader.
Here are two citations from respected news sources stating pagers were held by hezbollah members: https://apnews.com/article/lebanon-hezbollah-israel-exploding-pagers-8893a09816410959b6fe94aec124461b
https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/27/middleeast/israel-pager-attack-hezbollah-lebanon-invs-intl/index.html 2600:4808:6395:1200:792:1B82:6AF7:1FAC (talk) 07:08, 7 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with you that the lead could be better. But given that WP:ARBECR limits you to making specific edit requests per WP:EDITXY and given that the lead is just a summary of the article body, what I suggest is that you focus on one or more edit requests that amend the body of the article to include the information that you think is missing or not covered adequately. Then editors can re-summarize the article to incorporate that information in the lead. The lead is dependent on the article body. A valid reason to change a lead section is that it does not properly summarize the article body, not that it doesn't say what you want. Sean.hoyland (talk) 08:21, 7 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

"Jewish-American political scientist..." Jewishness not relevant in this context.

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I don’t believe Eliot Cohen’s Jewish background is relevant in the context of the paragraph where he is mentioned. His ethnicity has no clear bearing on the assessment he made about the impact of the attack, which falls within his area of expertise. Stating that he is Jewish comes across as an attempt to flag a potential bias, which plays into the stereotype of Jews (regardless of their nationality) having "dual loyalty" with Israel, which is widely recognized as an antisemitic trope. I doubt that was the intention, especially since the page is protected, but I wanted to raise the concern. However, if the intent really was to suggest that Cohen may have a strong pro-Israel stance and that this could influence his judgment, and if that is something supported by his record (which I don't know), I think it is more appropriate to instead refer to his record, or his political conservatism. FelixDeClercq (talk) 17:29, 11 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. I've removed it. If his article had included a sentence like 'as a Jewish-American...', maybe it would be relevant, at least from his perspective, but there is currently no source-based reason to include it. Sean.hoyland (talk) 17:55, 11 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
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