A Palestinian gunman shot and killed eight students at the Mercaz HaRav yeshiva in Jerusalem in March 2008, an attack Hamas later praised. Through 2020 the opening called it "The Mercaz HaRav massacre, also called the Mercaz HaRav shooting." Today's opening never uses "massacre," opening instead with "a lone Palestinian gunman shot multiple students"; the word survives twice elsewhere in the article. It also no longer says most of the eight students killed were 15 or 16 years old. A reader today does not learn the attack's commonly used name, the Mercaz HaRav massacre, or that most of the victims were teenagers.
Read line by line and written up by hand.
Machine-checked against the full current article on 2026-08-01. “massacre” appeared 1 times in this article's opening at its peak. Today the opening has none; the body has 2.
We saved snapshots of this article over twenty years; you are reading the 2010 one. Red dashes: removed from Wikipedia since.Pale dots: rewritten; the numbered note shows what it says now.Red text: written in or rewritten since the previous snapshot.1 tap a number or a side note to jump between them
The opening as it read in 2010
The Mercaz HaRav massacre , also called the Mercaz HaRav shooting , was an attack that occurred on 6 March 2008, in which a lone Palestinian gunman shot multiple students at the Mercaz HaRav yeshiva , a religious school in Jerusalem , Israel .1Eight students, most 15 or 16 years old, and the perpetrator were killed.2 Eleven more were wounded, five of them placed in serious to critical condition. The attack began at 8:36 p.m. local time and ended about twenty minutes later.3According to survivor Mijael Mendelson, the attack lasted about 14 minutes. Mendelson reports he saw the time before the shooting started and shortly after knowing the gunman was dead.4The attacker was stopped by two Israel Defense Forces officers who were former Mercaz HaRav students themselves: Yitzchak Dadon and Captain David Shapira, who both dealt the fatal blow to the attacker with their personal firearms.5
This is Wikipedia's own text, saved in our repository. Their copy of it is revision 370074511.
The opening as it stood in 2015 2 passages from the previous snapshot no longer appear
The Mercaz HaRav massacre , also called the Mercaz HaRav shooting , was an attack that occurred on 6 March 2008, in which a lone Palestinian gunman shot multiple students at the Mercaz HaRav yeshiva , a religious school in Jerusalem , Israel , after which the gunman himself was shot dead. Eight students and the perpetrator were killed. Eleven more were wounded, five of them placed in serious to critical condition. The attack began at 8:36 p.m. local time and ended about twenty minutes later. According to survivor Mijael Mendelson, the attack lasted about 14 minutes. Mendelson reports he saw the time before the shooting started and shortly after knowing the gunman was dead. The attacker was stopped by long-time Mercaz HaRav student Yitzchak Dadon and off-duty Israel Defense Forces Captain David Shapira who fought back using their personal firearms.The attack was praised by Hamas and, according to a subsequent poll, was supported by 84 percent of the Palestinian population, the highest result showing support for violence in 15 years, which the pollster concluded was the result of recent actions by Israel in Gaza and the West Bank.It was condemned in official statements by various countries around the world."Twenty minutes of fire until terrorist killed" (in Hebrew).
Red text was written in or rewritten since the previous snapshot. Their copy is revision 667777931.
The opening as it stood in 2020 2 passages from the previous snapshot no longer appear
The Mercaz HaRav massacre , also called the Mercaz HaRav shooting , was a mass shooting attack that occurred on 6 March 2008, in which a lone Palestinian gunman shot multiple students at the Mercaz HaRav yeshiva , a religious school in Jerusalem , Israel , after which the gunman himself was shot dead. Eight students and the perpetrator were killed. Eleven more were wounded, five of them placed in serious to critical condition. The attack began at 8:30 p.m. local time and ended sixteen minutes later.The attacker was stopped by long-time Mercaz HaRav student Yitzhak Dadon and off-duty Israel Defense Forces Captain David Shapira, who killed him with their personal firearms. The attack was praised by Hamas and, according to a subsequent poll, was supported by 84 percent of the Palestinian population, the highest result showing support for violence in 15 years, which the pollster concluded was the result of recent actions by Israel in Gaza and the West Bank. It was condemned in official statements by various countries around the world. "Twenty minutes of fire until terrorist killed" (in Hebrew).
Red text was written in or rewritten since the previous snapshot. Their copy is revision 958793558.
The opening as it stood on October 6, 2023 2 passages from the previous snapshot no longer appear
2008 school mass shooting in Jerusalem On 6 March 2008, a lone Palestinian gunman shot multiple students at the Mercaz HaRav yeshiva , a religious school in West Jerusalem .Eight students and the assailant were killed. Eleven more were wounded, five of them placed in serious to critical condition. The attack began at 8:30 p.m. local time and ended sixteen minutes later. The attacker was stopped by long-time Mercaz HaRav student Yitzhak Dadon and off-duty Israel Defense Forces Captain David Shapira, who killed the perpetrator with their personal firearms. The attack itself was praised by Hamas and, according to a subsequent poll, was supported by 84 percent of the Palestinian population, the highest result showing support for violence in 15 years, which the pollster concluded was the result of recent actions by Israel in Gaza and the West Bank. It was condemned in official statements by various countries around the world. "Twenty minutes of fire until terrorist killed" (in Hebrew).
Red text was written in or rewritten since the previous snapshot. Their copy is revision 1175108906. This is our newest snapshot; the live article may have moved again since.
Today
“massacre” appeared 1 times in this article's opening at its peak. Today the opening has none; the body has 2. Read the current article and compare.
2010
2015
2020
Oct '23
2025
massacre
1
1
1
0
0
terror
1
1
1
1
1
Counts in the opening at each snapshot. Green: the word gained ground. Red: it was cut. Grey: no change.
Struck red text is no longer in the article; dotted amber text was rewritten. Every revision id links to Wikipedia's copy; the text shown is our own saved copy. Data: /data. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA; quoted for the record; not affiliated with Wikipedia.
