Three weeks into Israel’s campaign to destroy Hamas, most IDF ground forces remain on the Gaza border, content with relatively limited night raids.
There are several theories that explain the delay in the major invasion promised by Israel’s leaders. Many point to American pressure, particularly US President Joe Biden’s desire for the IDF to pursue something other than a major ground offensive.
In the event that Israel eventually pushes into Gaza with tanks and infantry, U.S. officers – including a three-star Marine general – are in Israel to learn lessons from their fight against the Islamic State in densely populated cities like Mosul and Raqqa exchange.
If urban fighting breaks out in Gaza, it will certainly be bloody, slow and complex. It will present some unique challenges and some common to all battles in crowded cities.
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The nature of the environment will provide Hamas with a number of significant advantages that the IDF will have to contend with as it moves through what remains of Gaza City and its environs.
It remains to be seen whether Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wants to send Israeli forces into such hostile territory and whether the IDF can meet the challenge at an acceptable cost.
Equalizer
Urban warfare is often referred to as “the great equalizer” – it negates the advantages of a modern army and forces it to fight relatively evenly against defenders with fewer numbers and fewer capabilities.
East Gaza City, six months after Operation Protective Edge 2014 (Aaed Tayeh/ Flash90)
A professional force like the IDF is not really suited to urban combat. It is designed to conduct combined arms maneuver warfare in which an enemy is overwhelmed by concentrating speed and mass at critical points. It is designed to be mobile and quickly shift forces into areas where the enemy does not expect, breaking through defenses and causing resistance to collapse.
But in cities, a larger force must break up into smaller units to move slowly through narrow streets and cannot overwhelm the defenders as would be the case in forests, fields or deserts.
“The urban environment forces combat into close quarters,” said John Spencer, director of Urban Warfare Studies at the Modern War Institute at West Point. “A large force must be reduced to a small force.”
In this July 11, 2017, file photo, airstrikes target Islamic State positions on the edge of the Old City, a day after the Iraqi prime minister declared “total victory” in Mosul, Iraq. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana, File)
Defenders often attempt to force attackers into prepared killing zones. In the Battle of Mogadishu in 1993, the Battle of Grozny in 1994 and the siege of Sadr City in 2008, professional ground troops were allowed entry but then were barricaded by tires and debris behind them. They were funneled into ambushes along roads littered with explosive devices.
It is true that modern militaries have developed another significant advantage – the ability to detect the enemy from long distances and attack them precisely.
But the technological advantage that a modern military enjoys over an organization like ISIS or Hamas is largely wiped out in urban combat. Terrorists are hidden and protected by tunnels and buildings and can only be fought at close range.
“You can’t hold back and fight people with your weapons systems,” said Liam Collins, a career special forces officer who leads MWI.
Marines of the 1st Marine Regiment in Fallujah, 2004 (USMC, public domain)
“Urban warfare is probably the most difficult terrain to fight in,” he continued, citing the “three-dimensional nature” of the threat.
Enemy forces not only face attackers, but can also threaten them from above by exploiting surrounding buildings.
In the case of Hamas, they will also be among IDF forces, using their extensive network of tunnels to appear behind Israeli forces, attack and then disappear.
“Surprise is hard,” Collins continued. “You don’t know where he is, he knows where you are, he takes the first shot.”
Buildings, whether standing or destroyed, also represent a defensive line of reinforced concrete that would take Western militaries years to construct.
In addition to these challenges, cities are by definition inhabited by civilians. Although Israel has tried to encourage Gazans to move south out of harm’s way, Hamas is blocking roads. And in similar cases, generally around 10 percent of civilians stay there.
In Gaza City, that would mean that there are over 60,000 civilians in the combat zone.
“If you’re talking about a nation that’s trying to minimize collateral damage and civilian deaths, that doesn’t really give you a lot of benefit,” Collins said.
Surprise is hard. You don’t know where he is, he knows where you are, he takes the first shot.
Furthermore, the accessibility of mass communications technology in the hands of enemy forces and civilians makes it easy for terrorists such as Hamas to influence public perceptions of the battle, often with strategic implications.
In the first battle of Fallujah in 2004, insurgents in the city prepared a highly effective information campaign. They let sympathetic journalists into the city before the fighting began. According to a study by Spencer and Jayson Geroux, Arab channels such as Al Jazeera “constantly broadcast photos and videos of wounded civilians, including women and children.”
A group of young Somalis chant anti-American slogans while sitting on the burned-out fuselage of a U.S. Black Hawk helicopter in Mogadishu, Somalia, October 19, 1993 (AP Photo/Dominique Mollard)
“American military and civilian leaders had launched the operation without a coherent information operations plan to counter the enemy’s narrative,” they wrote. “As a result, the Iraqi people, government leaders and many in the international community firmly and publicly rejected the operation.”
The US armed forces had to call off the operation after just six days.
Spencer said Israel was “actually doing more than what anyone else has done in recent battles of the past – with the evacuation, with the airmen, by not targeting valid military targets because of collateral damage.”
But that’s not necessarily what the world sees.
“The war criminal can use the ‘democratization of technology’ to distort the perception of what is going on,” Spencer told the Times of Israel.
solutions
Despite the overwhelming scale of the challenge, the IDF has tools to address it, some of which are based on lessons learned from other Western forces.
The first rule is to isolate the fight and control the inflow and outflow of fighters and weapons. In Sadr City, U.S. forces launched Operation Gold Wall, quickly erecting a massive concrete barrier to keep enemy fighters isolated in their Baghdad stronghold.
Volunteers from the newly formed “Peace Brigades” raise their weapons and chant slogans against the al-Qaeda-inspired Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant during a parade in the Shiite stronghold of Sadr City, Baghdad, Iraq, on Saturday, June 21, 2014. (Photo credit: AP/Khalid Mohammed)
This is made extremely challenging by Hamas’ tunnel network, but over time the IDF can cut off pockets of resistance and then reduce them to rubble.
With its superior technology, the IDF enjoys an advantage at night. “That’s when they should do most of their operations and movements,” Collins said.
They will also rely heavily on small drones and other robots to let them know what awaits them around corners and inside buildings.
“Don’t walk into a room without knowing what’s in there,” cautioned Collins. “Don’t go into a room if you can send an object into it without going in there, usually an object from the air. These will be much quicker and easier to move.”
Givati Brigade soldiers seen at the entrance to a Hamas attack tunnel July 23, 2014, during Operation Protective Edge. (Israeli Defense Forces/Flash90)
If they encounter Hamas fighters holed up in a building, Spencer said there is no reason to try to clear the building by sending in soldiers.
“If you know there is an enemy in the building, use all your resources to destroy the building. And that is consistent with international humanitarian law.”
Up to 90 percent of buildings are typically destroyed in urban battles, he explained. “There is no surgical intervention in this contested urban war.
“This is perfectly lawful, despite the destruction it causes and the risk to civilians,” Collins agreed. “Unfortunately, when the enemy puts themselves in that position and uses human shields, that is a brutal part of war.”
Meanwhile, the IDF will need to find ways to continue using combined arms maneuvers – effectively using infantry, armor, artillery and, most importantly, technology together – to fight a range of close-quarters combat.
In 1973, at the end of the Yom Kippur War, the IDF learned the price of using its combat weapons sequentially – and not in close coordination – in the bloody Battle of Suez, which cost Israel 80 dead and 40 tanks destroyed.
Lessons from Ukraine
Through fighting in cities such as Bakhmut, Sumy, Kherson, Mariupol and Kiev, Ukrainian forces have developed expertise in urban combat since Russia’s invasion in February 2022.
Col. Victor Kevlyuk, a fellow at the Kyiv Center for Defense Strategies, told The Times of Israel that many of Ukraine’s lessons are applicable to the IDF.
Russian soldiers patrol the destroyed part of the Ilyich Iron and Steel Plant in the Ukrainian port city of Mariupol on May 18, 2022. (Olga MALTSEVA / AFP)
He said two squadrons should storm a city: a heavily armed assault force and an isolation force to take control of areas cleared by the initial attack.
The troops should be prepared for fierce fighting. “The assault squadron has a double supply of hand grenades, disposable grenade launchers, jet flamethrowers, anti-tank missiles and MANPADS,” Kevlyuk said. “Combat medics in armored evacuation vehicles – waiting in plain sight.”
Never walk through streets – “yards, private buildings, holes in fences and walls are the path to victory” – and logistics and medical units must be nearby, he explained.
UAV operators are critical, he said, and should always be with the attack force commander.
A member of the Ukrainian Territorial Defense Forces holds an NLAW anti-tank weapon, on the outskirts of Kiev, Ukraine, March 9, 2022. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky, File)
Personal responsibility, which is always crucial in combat, is even more urgent here, Kelyuk emphasized.
“If you have nothing in the fight, it’s your fault,” he said. “Ballistic protection, a first aid kit and a tourniquet, preferably two, are a must.” When packing a backpack, an extra pack of bullets is always better than a can of food. Everyone should clearly clarify their combat task, know who operates to the right and left of you, how to contact the commander, the combat medic and the engineer.
Is time on Israel’s side?
If Netanyahu and his war cabinet give the IDF the green light, the fight is sure to be difficult. And beyond all the tactical and informational challenges, Israeli leaders will have to contend with another perplexing problem – time.
“Time in the urban environment can make or break you,” Spencer explained.
U.S. President Joe Biden is greeted by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after his arrival at Ben Gurion International Airport in Lod, October 18, 2023. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
Hamas’ goal will be to delay the IDF’s progress and prolong the fight until international pressure, domestic politics or military necessity force Israel to abandon the campaign while Hamas is still active.
But moving too quickly would leave IDF forces vulnerable to enemy ambushes; Urban warfare is inherently a slow process.
Hamas has been preparing for this fight for years, but so has Israel. It will be a test of skill, technology, tactics and leadership, but like all wars it will be primarily a test of willpower.