Volunteer editors on Wikipedia are discussing whether to rename an entry on the crowdsourced, online encyclopaedia, one of the internet’s most visited sites, that is currently titled “Hamas beheading babies hoax”.
The entry, which has been part of the site since February 2025, states that the “hoax refers to allegations, since refuted, that Hamas killed and beheaded dozens of babies and toddlers during the October 7 attacks, which it led in southern Israel in 2023”.
The “hoax” was “initially endorsed by then-US President Joe Biden, the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and some IDF spokespeople and was then spread credulously by Western media outlets, gaining widespread coverage and, arguably, helping to shape the consensus in favour of war on the Gaza Strip,” the entry continues.
“At times, the Israeli government has discreetly admitted that the rumours about the beheaded children are unfounded.
“The hoax is argued by critics of Israel to be an example of atrocity propaganda and evidence that Israel is waging a ‘war on truth’ during the Gaza war.”
Editors generally appeared to agree on the entry’s “talk” page that the claim that Hamas beheaded babies is false, but disagreed on whether to use the word “hoax” in the title.
However, Daniel S Mariaschin, CEO of B’nai B’rith International, told JNS that “there are many, many witnesses to the result of Hamas violence and barbarity against children and women, and entire families on that day of infamy”.
Vlad Khaykin, executive vice president of social impact and North American partnerships at the Simon Wiesenthal Centre, told JNS that “the central issue is not a single contested detail but how language is used to frame the broader reality of October 7”.
“There is a meaningful distinction between an unverified or inaccurate report and labelling something a ‘hoax’, which implies deliberate fabrication,” he said.
“The wiki article in question itself quotes an investigation from Le Monde that describes the claim as emerging from confusion and the fog of a traumatic event, not intentional deception.”
Khaykin told JNS: “Our concern is that the use of the term ‘hoax’ does more than correct the record. It risks reframing a documented massacre of civilians, including children and infants, into something that invites suspicion rather than recognition of what occurred.
“In the digital ecosystem, where platforms like Wikipedia shape how events are understood at scale, those distinctions matter.
“Language does not just describe events, it influences how they are remembered.”
Kurt Schwartz, CEO of the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis, told JNS: “There was no such hoax.
“Hamas and its friends murdered babies on October 7. They murdered toddlers. They massacred 39 children and over 1,000 others. There is gruesome video, recorded by the attackers, of decapitation. An Israeli father recovered the head of his son.”
Amid the "chaos and carnage and in the fog of war" on October 10, "some people briefly misunderstood reports about murdered babies and about beheadings," which "hardly amounts to a ‘hoax’," Schwartz said.
"Even Wikipedia’s own sources acknowledge as much. If there is any hoax, it is in the instrumentalisation of this chaos by those who seek to minimise Hamas atrocities,” he told JNS.
Schwartz added that “Holocaust deniers have long latched on to anomalies and errors to deny the Nazi genocide”.
"This type of inhumanity aimed at the victims of October 7, 2023, aims to encourage the same,” he said. “It must be called out and rejected.”
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