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Operation Defensive Shield: what Wikipedia removed

The 2002 operation launched after the Passover massacre. “Terror” appeared in this opening at every snapshot from 2010 to October 2023 and appears 0 times today.

The word “terror” appeared 2 times in this article’s opening at its peak, in 2010. Today it appears nowhere in the article at all, references included. Checked against the full current article on 2026-08-02.

word20052010201520206 October 202320252026
terror0211100
jihad0111211
massacre0100100
martyr0100111
occupation0000011

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

  • The stated purpose of the operation, stopping deaths from terrorist attacks and suicide bombings, removed.
  • The Passover massacre, the attack that triggered the operation, removed from the opening.
  • The sentence naming the trigger, removed.
  • The operation description was removed.
  • The scale of the operation, removed.
  • The opening chronology, removed.
  • The curfew period detail, removed.
  • A cited account of the three weeks, removed.
  • The UN report line that combatants on both sides endangered civilians was reworded.

Wikipedia publishes who makes every edit. These removals were traced to the exact revision that made them:

2005 (revision 16183452):

Operation Defensive Shield (In Hebrew , מבצע חומת מגן) was a large-scale military operation conducted by the Israeli Defence Forces in April 2002 . It was the largest military operation in the West Bank since the 1967 Six-Day War .

2026 (revision 1366298516):

2002 Israeli military operation Belligerents Israel Palestinian Authority Fatah Hamas Palestinian Islamic Jihad Commanders and leaders Ariel Sharon Shaul Mofaz Yitzhak Eitan Yasser Arafat Mahmoud Tawalbe † Units involved Israel Defense Forces Israeli Ground Forces Israeli Air Force Palestinian Security Services Palestinian National Security Forces Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades Tanzim Al-Qassam Brigades Al-Quds Brigades Strength 20,000 soldiers 10,000 fighters Casualties and losses 30 soldiers killed 127 soldiers wounded 497 killed (per UN reports) 1,447 wounded 7,000 detained Ramallah Tulkarm Qalqilya Bethlehem Jenin Nablus Hebron Cities in the West Bank that saw major combat during Operation De…

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