Meron Junction Bus 361 attack: what Wikipedia removed
A 2002 Hamas suicide bombing at the Meron junction bus stop killed six civilians and three soldiers. Through 2020 the opening called Hamas “The Palestinian Islamist militant organization Hamas,” which claimed responsibility for the attack. Today the opening calls Hamas only “the militant group Hamas,” and Islamist appears nowhere in the article. A reader today learns Hamas is a militant group and not that it is an Islamist one.
The word “islamist” appeared 1 times in this article’s opening at its peak, in 2015. Today it appears nowhere in the article at all, references included. 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 | 2015 | 2020 | 6 October 2023 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| islamist | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| terror | 0 | 0 | 2 | 2 |
| militant | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
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 Hamas as a Palestinian Islamist militant organization was shortened to simply ‘militant group’ in the current opening.
How it opened then, and now
Section titled “How it opened then, and now”2015 (revision 521463884):
The Meron Junction Bus 361 attack was a suicide bombing which occurred on August 4, 2002 on an Egged bus in the Meron junction in northern Israel near Safed . 9 people were killed in the attack and 38 people were injured. The Palestinian Islamist militant organization Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack.
2025 (revision 1284437529):
Hamas suicide bombing in 2002 On August 4, 2002, a Palestinian suicide bomber from the militant group Hamas conducted a suicide bombing aboard an Egged bus at the Meron junction in northern Israel near Safed . In addition to the bomber, six Israeli civilians, and three Israeli soldiers were killed. Thirty-eight people were injured. Hamas subsequently publicly claimed responsibility for the attack, claiming it was in retaliation for an Israeli airstrike against a Hamas commander and to express displeasure with a UN-sponsored investigation into the Israeli incursion into the Jenin refugee camp that April. Saeb Erakat condemned the attack, and Palestinian minister Nabil Shaath claimed that Pale…
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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