Among the likely, if not probable, war scenarios in Israel is a ground attack on Gaza. A frightening prospect of fighting in the heart of an extremely densely populated city, in underground spaces and in the presence of hostages, most of them Israelis.
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On Monday, Israel ordered an “immediate” halt to its water supply to the Gaza Strip as part of a “complete siege” of Hamas-controlled territory.
The rest seems written: “Israel will launch the largest joint operation (air/land/sea/space) in history against Gaza,” assures on X (ex-Twitter) John Spencer, expert from the Modern War Institute of the West Point American Academy .
“The attacks will initially be aimed at Hamas’ command centers and its troops; the fire will come from everywhere. At the same time, the army will prepare to invade Gaza,” predicts Alexandre Grinberg from the Jerusalem Institute for Security and Strategy (JISS).
However, urban guerrilla warfare forces hand-to-hand combat, reduces visibility, multiplies the number of traps, blurs the distinction between civilians and soldiers, and renders armored vehicles almost useless.
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Andrew Galer, a former British officer and now an analyst for the private intelligence firm Janes, describes a “360-degree battlefield where the threat is everywhere,” from sewers to roofs, from basements to false ceilings.
Securing any potentially trapped building means mobilizing deminers, using ladders, ropes and explosives, “all potentially under fire,” possibly in the dark, he explains.
Additionally, “there are inherent risks of friendly fire” associated with combatant dispersal and mobility.
And “as many conflicts over the last century have shown, the use of artillery can make things worse” when rubble becomes cover.
Around 2.3 million Palestinians live in Gaza, which has been under Israeli blockade since 2007. A network of narrow, crowded streets overlooking a dense network of tunnels nicknamed the “Gaza Metro” by the Israeli army.
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Hundreds of tunnels have been dug under the 14-kilometer-long border between Gaza and Egypt’s Sinai to transport fighters, weapons and other contraband. Many have now been destroyed.
But since 2014, Hamas has been digging underground routes within the territory itself.
Hunters installed up to 30 or 40 meters underground circle there out of attack range.
Rocket launcher batteries hidden a few meters deep can emerge through a trap door system, fire and disappear again.
The Israeli army bombed them intensively in 2021. But while parts of this network are undoubtedly known to her, others have remained secret and will complicate her operations.
Hamas “knows its tunnels inside out,” says Colin Clarke, research director at the Soufan Center in New York.
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“Some are probably trapped. Preparing for combat in such terrain (…) would require extensive intelligence information (…) which the Israelis may not have.
And even more than in open space combat, the defender – in this case Hamas – has a major tactical advantage.
“Everyone knows that it will be long and difficult with a lot of losses,” admits Alexandre Grinberg to AFP, adding that there are “robots and other special means that make it possible to penetrate tunnels.”
For Hamas, he assures, “it is an advantage that can also prove to be a trap. If we locate tunnels, we can imprison those who are in them.”
Finally, the operation will have an additional complexity: Hamas has taken dozens of civilians hostage, mostly Israelis but, according to Israeli media, also foreign workers and probably soldiers.
“Israeli society will not forgive the lack of priority on the lives of the hostages. The pressure of public opinion is enormous and (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu knows this well,” said Sylvaine Bulle, a sociologist at CNRS and a specialist on Israel.
“The reports that Israeli society will demand will say: you did not ensure our security, you brought us the hostages,” she adds, anticipating “no doubt temporal conflicts between the military and politics.”
In fact, Tel Aviv is currently not in a position to negotiate, emphasizes Kobi Michael, researcher at the INSS think tank in Tel Aviv.
“With all the grief, all the pain, the hostage problem cannot be Israel’s first priority,” he says bluntly.
“Israel will only come to the hostage problem when Hamas is defeated and weak. Not a second before.”
On Monday, a member of Hamas’s political bureau in Qatar reiterated: “No negotiations on the issue of prisoners or anything else are possible at this time.”