Sayeret Matkal: what Wikipedia removed
Sayeret Matkal is Israel’s elite special-forces reconnaissance unit, famous for the 1976 Operation Entebbe hostage rescue. Through 2005 the opening described the unit as having rescued “more than 100 Air France airline passengers hijacked to Uganda by PLO terrorists.” Today’s opening credits the unit generally with counterterrorism among its roles, but the description of the Entebbe hijackers as PLO terrorists is gone, though terror survives 12 times in the body. A reader today does not learn that the hijackers who forced the Entebbe rescue were identified as PLO terrorists.
The word “terror” appeared 2 times in this article’s opening at its peak, in 2005. Today the opening carries none; the body carries 12. 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 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| militant | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| hostage | 0 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 |
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 Hebrew name and its translation, ‘General Staff Reconnaissance unit,’ reworded and moved elsewhere in the opening.
- The sentence naming counterterrorism as one of the unit’s main roles in that exact phrasing, dropped from the opening, though counterterrorism is now listed among a longer set of roles.
- The description of the Entebbe hijackers as ‘PLO terrorists,’ dropped from the opening.
How it opened then, and now
Section titled “How it opened then, and now”2005 (revision 17757149):
Sayeret Matkal ( Hebrew : סיירת מטכ”ל - General Staff Reconnaissance unit) is the elite special forces unit of the Israeli Defence Force , established in 1957 . Its main roles are counter terror , deep reconnaissance and intelligence gathering . The unit is modelled on the British SAS , and organizationally reports to the IDF’s Intelligence Branch ( A’man ). Its nickname in the IDF is simply “The Unit”. It is best known for Operation Thunderbolt, mistakenly better known as Operation Entebbe , in which they rescued more than 100 Air France airline passengers hijacked to Uganda by PLO terrorists, losing the unit commander ( Yonathan Netanyahu ) to enemy gunfire.
2025 (revision 1296431171):
Israeli special forces unit Military unit Sayeret Matkal ( Hebrew : סיירת מטכ״ל ) (formerly Unit 269 or Unit 262 ) (English: General Staff Reconnaissance Unit ) is the special reconnaissance unit ( sayeret ) of Israel’s General Staff ( matkal ). It is considered one of the premier special forces units of Israel . Though primarily a field intelligence-gathering unit, conducting deep reconnaissance behind enemy lines to obtain strategic intelligence, Sayeret Matkal is also tasked with a wide variety of special operations , including black operations , combat search and rescue , counterterrorism , hostage rescue , HUMINT , irregular warfare, long-range penetration, conducting manhunts, and reco…
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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