A report in Britain's Financial Times has confirmed that a possible Israeli ground offensive to "root out Hamas militants" would be a test of the IDF's skills in urban warfare.

Israeli explosives expert Eyal was first sent to Gaza nine years ago at the age of 9 to help dismantle Hamas tunnels and is now preparing to return there.

Eyal said entering Hamas-controlled Palestinian territory was "a real nightmare. Anything you touch can be a bomb, and anyone you see can be a terrorist. You have to move deliberately slowly. Sometimes they move faster than you can respond to. The only thing that keeps you alive is your training."


Worst

Ehud Olmert, who as prime minister in 2008 sent ground troops to the 40-kilometer area in Operation Cast Lead, said what awaits Israeli soldiers is "everything you can imagine the worst," adding, "It won't be simple and it won't be for us or for them."

Given the apparent intelligence failures that preceded Saturday's attack, it is possible that Israeli forces were heading toward "new launchers, new types of more powerful and larger missiles, or new anti-tank missiles that we are not aware of."

Hamas has amassed a massive rocket arsenal since Israeli soldiers last entered Gaza in 2014 and has built hundreds of kilometers of tunnels, dubbed the Gaza Metro, to transport fighters and weapons undetected and train them to fight in urban areas.

Until Saturday's shocking attack, the Israeli military was convinced it was aware of Hamas's invention, spending billions on sensors to detect underground movements and build a barrier to prevent tunnels from reaching Israel.


Land invasion

Now, with 300,1982 troops amassed on the Gaza border and the Israeli Air Force bombing Gaza, the IDF appears to be on the brink of a ground invasion unprecedented since its move to Lebanon in <>.

Maj. Nir Dinar, an IDF spokesman, was quoted as saying that "Hamas is very well prepared, we have improved our tools and methods."

The new war against Hamas, which Netanyahu said would be "long and painful," will set two competing ways of fighting against each other: He leaves Gazans preparing for an even more devastating offensive this time; Israel has already imposed a blockade on the enclave and cut off water and electricity.

On the other hand, the IDF will fight an enemy looking to exploit all the benefits of urban defense — from booby traps and sniper positions to enhanced strongholds — as well as a range of low-tech tactics to weaken Israel's technological capabilities.

The IDF will deploy the so-called "Victory Doctrine," which requires the air force to have a large set of targets that have been pre-screened and destroyed in a rapid manner. It has already begun, with fighter jets intensively bombing large swathes of Gaza, stopping only to refuel, often in mid-air.


Targeting the resistance

The campaign aims to exceed Hamas's ability to regroup, and according to a person familiar with the discussions that led to the creation of the 2020 doctrine, its goal is to "maximize the goals before the international community exerts political pressure to slow down."

John Spencer, a former U.S. major who heads urban warfare studies at the Modern Warfare Institute at the U.S. Military Academy, known as West Point, said: "Things will be very bloody, you can't change the nature of urban warfare, there will be a lot of collateral damage."

Israel has developed some of the world's most modern urban warfare exercises in preparation for such conflicts.

One military technique is to enter buildings by penetrating side walls to avoid booby-trapped doors. Once inside, soldiers blow up interior walls to avoid any sniper fire on stairs or open spaces in the street. Another tactic is to use 3-story armored bulldozers to pave the way for units fighting on the ground.


Tactics

Anthony King, a professor of war studies at the University of Exeter and author of "Urban Warfare in the 21st Century," said Israel's possible first step would involve building what he described as "a multi-layered cylinder of air power rising 60,<> feet above the fighting," adding, "Small drones and attack helicopters will be at the lowest level, surveillance aircraft and drones above them, and then fighter jets at the top with strategic reconnaissance aircraft."

The next step will see armored vehicles pass through the streets and artillery to blow up the road. It would be very devastating.

Before Israeli forces can reach Hamas's urban strongholds, they will have to break through a series of defensive lines that will include mines, ambush sites and mortar targets, according to a recent review by Nadav Moragh, a former Israeli security adviser.

On the outskirts of Gaza's cities, heavy mortars, machine guns, anti-tank weapons, snipers, and possibly "suicide bombers" will await them, and breaking through the tunnels will require intense combat and the use of "sponge bombs," a chemical compound that blocks small entrances.

"It doesn't destroy the tunnels, but it does allow the forces to move forward and they don't have to get enemy forces out of every tunnel," Spencer said.


Mission Impossible

Dismantling Hamas, rescuing Israeli hostages and minimizing civilian casualties would be a very complex — and even impossible — task for the IDF.

The report quoted former Israeli Prime Minister Olmert warning that Netanyahu and the IDF face a moral dilemma: the use of air power to attack Hamas increases the risk of civilian casualties, while the use of ground forces is more accurate but increases the risk to Israeli soldiers.

"Are we prepared to take action that involves significant risks for Israeli soldiers, or will we choose a strategy that will cause more people who are not tragically uninvolved?"

"From what I know about the Israeli public at the moment, the option would be to take fewer risks."