Nidal Farahat: what Wikipedia removed
Nidal Farahat, an active member of Hamas’s Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, created the Qassam rocket. Through 2015 the opening described him “planning and carrying out numerous terrorist operations including mortar attacks on Jewish settlements in the Gaza strip.” Today the opening describes the same activity as “numerous operations,” and the word terrorist appears nowhere in the article. A reader today does not learn that Wikipedia’s own opening once called his mortar attacks on Jewish settlements terrorist operations.
The word “terror” 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 | 2005 | 2010 | 2015 | 2020 | 6 October 2023 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| terror | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| militant | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 6 | 6 |
| resistance | 1 | 0 | 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”- A phonetic transliteration of his name, dropped from the opening.
- A note that the Hamas militant Imad Aqel, whose death led to Farahat’s arrest, was married to a specific individual, dropped from the opening.
- A detail about his brothers’ fates, one imprisoned since 1992, dropped from the opening.
How it opened then, and now
Section titled “How it opened then, and now”2005 (revision 17840119):
Nidal Fat’hi Rabah Farahat (April 8, 1971 - February 16, 2005 ) was the creator of the Qassam rocket , a homemade weapon produced by the Ezzedeen-al-qassam brigades. Farahat was a devout muslim who spent a lot of time at the mosque in the Shijaha neighborhood of Gaza City , his hometown. During the First Intifada , he took part in the palestinian resistance movement and had some connections to Hamas . After the Intifada, Farahat was arrested following the death of senior Hamas militant Imad Aqel who was hiding in his house. After spending 3 years in israeli detention, he returned to Gaza. At the beginning of the Al-Aqsa Intifada , in 2000 , Farahat officially joined the Ezzedeen-al-qassam br…
2025 (revision 1275454945):
Palestinian militant (1972–2003) Nidal Fat’hi Rabah Farahat ( Arabic : نضال فتحي رباح فرحات , romanized : Niḍāl Fatḥī Rabāḥ Faraḥāt ; 8 April 1971 – 16 February 2003) created the Qassam rocket , a homemade weapon produced by Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades . After the First Intifada , Farahat was arrested following the death of senior Hamas militant Imad Aqel . After spending three years in Israeli detention, he returned to Gaza. At the beginning of Al-Aqsa Intifada , in 2000, Farahat officially joined the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades and soon became an active member in the organization, planning and carrying out numerous operations including mortar attacks on Jewish settlements in the Gaza s…
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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