Blockade of the Gaza Strip: what Wikipedia removed
Israel’s blockade of Gaza, in place since 2007, restricts the movement of goods and people into and out of the territory. In 2020 the opening carried Israel’s own justification, that the blockade was necessary “to protect Israeli citizens from terrorism, rocket attacks and any other hostile activity.” The opening today gives the blockade’s aims as preventing weapons smuggling and pressuring Hamas, and quotes human rights groups calling it illegal and a form of collective punishment, while the word terror survives 22 times in the body but not the opening. A reader today learns that human rights groups call the blockade illegal but not that Israel’s stated reason was to stop terrorism and rocket attacks against its own citizens.
The word “terror” appeared 1 times in this article’s opening at its peak, in 2020. Today the opening carries none; the body carries 22. Checked against the full current article on 2026-08-01.
The tracked words, snapshot by snapshot
Section titled “The tracked words, snapshot by snapshot”| word | 2010 | 2015 | 2020 | 6 October 2023 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| terror | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| massacre | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| occupation | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| resistance | 0 | 1 | 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
Section titled “What was taken out”- The statement that Hamas had previously refused to accept the conditions set by Israel, dropped from the opening.
- The detail that Hamas formed the Palestinian Authority government in March 2006, dropped from the opening.
- Israel’s own stated justification, protecting its citizens from terrorism and rocket attacks, dropped from the opening; the word survives 22 times in the body.
- The description of declining imports and blocked exports was reworded rather than removed.
- The detail that Abbas supported Egypt’s crackdown on smuggling tunnels, dropped from the opening.
- The World Bank’s 2015 estimate of GDP losses caused by the blockade, dropped from the opening.
How it opened then, and now
Section titled “How it opened then, and now”2010 (revision 371184789):
This article is about the blockade of the Gaza Strip since June 2007. For the ancient siege of Gaza, see Siege of Gaza . Template:Fix bunching Rafah Border Crossing between Egypt and Palestinian-controlled Rafah in 2009. Template:Fix bunching Template:Fix bunching The Gaza Strip has been blockaded by Israel and Egypt since June 2007. Following the victory of Hamas in the 2006 Palestinian legislative election , Hamas and Fatah formed the Palestinan authority national unity government headed by Ismail Haniya . In 2007, Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip from in the course of the Battle of Gaza (2007) , by seizing government institutions and replacing Fatah and other government officials with…
2025 (revision 1298097596):
2005–present land, sea and air blockade by Israel and Egypt For the intensified blockade since 2023, see Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip (2023–present) . The restrictions on movement and goods in Gaza imposed by Israel date to the early 1990s. After Hamas took over in 2007, Israel significantly intensified existing movement restrictions and imposed a complete blockade on the movement of goods and people in and out of the Gaza Strip . In the same year, Egypt closed the Rafah border crossing . The blockade’s stated aims are to prevent the smuggling of weapons into Gaza and exert economic pressure on Hamas. Human rights groups have called the blockade illegal and a form of collective punishm…
Related
Section titled “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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