Al-Aqsa Foundation: what Wikipedia removed

The al-Aqsa Foundation is a charity the US Treasury designated a Specially Designated Global Terrorist entity in 2003 for its links to Hamas. The 2010 opening described it as having “alleged ties to the Palestinian militant organisation Hamas” and quoted US officials calling it “a critical part of Hamas’ transnational terrorist support infrastructure.” Today’s opening keeps the 2003 designation but drops the description of Hamas as a militant organization and drops the “critical part of Hamas’ transnational terrorist support infrastructure” characterization; the word survives twice elsewhere in the article. A reader today does not learn that the US government specifically called the foundation a critical part of Hamas’ transnational terrorist support infrastructure.

The word “humanitarian” appeared 2 times in this article’s opening at its peak, in 2015. Today the opening carries none; the body carries 1. Checked against the full current article on 2026-08-01.

Where this comes from

We saved this article’s opening paragraph at 5 moments between 2010 and 2025. Everything below is Wikipedia’s own text, quoted from those saved copies. The interactive version, with every snapshot side by side and each removal marked in place, is at ilroot.com/case/al-aqsa-foundation.

The tracked words, snapshot by snapshot

word	2010	2015	2020	6 October 2023	2025
humanitarian	0	0	0	0	0
terror	8	12	0	0	3
militant	1	0	0	0	0

Counts are of the opening paragraph only, the part most readers, search engines and AI training sets ever quote.

What was taken out

• The description of Hamas as a militant organization, dropped from the opening.
• The US government’s characterization of the foundation as a critical part of Hamas’ transnational terrorist support infrastructure, dropped from the opening.

How it opened then, and now

2010 (revision 354792934):

For other uses of the term al-Aqsa, see al-Aqsa . The al-Aqsa Foundation is an international charity with alleged ties to the Palestinian militant organisation Hamas . The head office of the foundation was located in Germany until it was closed by the German authorities in July 2002. The organisation is known to have local branch offices in the Netherlands , Denmark , Belgium , Sweden , Pakistan , South Africa , Yemen and elsewhere. The al-Aqsa Foundation has been described by the United States as a “critical part of Hamas’ transnational terrorist support infrastructure” and has said that it “uses humanitarian relief as cover to provide support to the Hamas terrorist organization” . Hamas is…

2025 (revision 1246156432):

International charitable organization (est. 1991) For other uses of “al-Aqsa”, see al-Aqsa (disambiguation) . The al-Aqsa Foundation (originally named Al-Aqsa E.V. ) is an entity established in 1991 as a non-profit organisation that some Western governments have said is linked to Hamas . In 2003 the U.S. Treasury Department designated the foundation as a “Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) entity.” The head office of the foundation was located in Germany until it was closed by the German authorities in July 2002. The organisation is known to have local branch offices in the Netherlands , Denmark , Belgium , Sweden , Pakistan , South Africa , Yemen and elsewhere. ^ “UK and US freeze…

Related

• The drift report: what changed across all 61,944 watched articles
• The case file for this article, with every snapshot and every marked removal
• Who made the cuts: removals grouped by the account that made them
• The live article on Wikipedia

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