Force 17: what Wikipedia removed
Force 17 was the Fatah commando and special operations unit founded by Ali Hassan Salameh. Through 2010 the opening said that during the Second Intifada, Force 17 or its members were tasked with acquiring arms for groups loyal to Arafat and with carrying out terror attacks or resisting Israeli incursions into Palestinian Authority territory. Today the opening says only that the unit was formed in the early 1970s and initially housed on Al-Fakhani Street in Beirut, and terror does not appear there though it survives four times elsewhere in the article. A reader today does not learn from the opening that Force 17 members carried out terror attacks during the Second Intifada.
The word “terror” appeared 1 times in this article’s opening at its peak, in 2010. Today the opening carries none; the body carries 4. 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 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| militant | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| martyr | 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
Section titled “What was taken out”- The description of founder Ali Hassan Salameh as a senior Fatah militant was dropped, and today’s opening calls him only by name.
How it opened then, and now
Section titled “How it opened then, and now”2010 (revision 370649691):
Force 17 is an elite commando and special operations unit of the Palestinian Fatah movement and later of the Office of the Chairman of the Palestinian Authority . Force 17 was formed in the early 1970s by senior Fatah militant Ali Hassan Salameh (Abu Hassan) Unlike various units formed within Fatah previously the premise of Force 17 was assassinating Israeli political figures. The importance of such a unit was made clear by the heavy losses suffered by the PLO leadership in Operation Spring of Youth (1973). Force 17 was used by Fatah to protect PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat , his top lieutenants, as well as diplomats of the organization. They accompanied Arafat during his 1974 address to the Un…
2025 (revision 1296305536):
Defunct Palestinian security organization Military unit Force 17 ( Arabic : القوة 17 ) was a commando and special operations unit of the Palestinian Fatah movement and later of the Office of the Chairman of the Palestinian Authority . It was formed in the early 1970s by Ali Hassan Salameh (Abu Hassan). Initially, the group was housed in building 17 of Al-Fakhani Street in Beirut. ^ “Who are Force 17?” . BBC. December 4, 2001. ^ Cite error: The named reference bbc_2006-12-01 was invoked but never defined (see the help page ).
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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