The Chaotic Urban Hellscape That Awaits Israel in a Gaza Invasion
By Wall Street Journal, Oct. 20, 2023
Successful military operations in urban terrain, as the fighting is formally known, require extensive training and troop preparation. U.S. forces in Iraq spent years learning to operate in urban battle zones such as Fallujah and Mosul, developing
specialized weapons and tactics.

Steve Walsh, who was a Marine Corps lieutenant colonel in Fallujah, said U.S. forces prepared for the assault for two to three months and used the sort of technology that Israel will have, such as thermal optics, sensors and drones.

Despite having constant and complete air supremacy, the battle—his most intense in 26 years of service—was “often very messy, very close combat,” he said.

“Often what was required to kill the bad guys was just old-fashioned muscle, a squad of Marines with grenades following up through a hole a tank has just blown into a wall of a house,” he said.

Urban warfare is considered ideal terrain for snipers. Snipers say buildings give cover and distort sound, making it harder to trace them. Hamas used snipers to kill an Israeli soldier in a 2018 skirmish.

A good sniper can generally fire three shots before being located, and can conduct reconnaissance, said Walsh, who was an instructor at the Marine sniper school in Quantico, Va. “Urban combat is generally at short ranges and up-close and personal,”
he said.

Urban warfare is subject to restrictions on the use of force mandated by international laws of war. Those limitations, combined with pervasive threats, put enormous stress on soldiers.

Even when cities are largely emptied of civilians, an urban assault can require three times as many troops as in less treacherous conditions. In open terrain, attackers generally want to have about three troops for every defender, while in urban
conditions the ratio can be 5 or even 10 to 1, said John Spencer, chair of Urban Warfare Studies at the Madison Policy Forum, a think tank.

Destroying buildings, as Israel has been doing, can eliminate some command-and-control centers. That complicates defensive operations, but also creates rubble that can impede a ground invasion.

To clear paths for troops, the Israel Defense Forces uses heavily modified Caterpillar D9 bulldozers—hulking earth movers encased in several tons of armor, explosion-proof windows and protective shielding. Some D9s can be operated remotely to avoid
putting drivers at risk.

Rubble has been a problem for attackers in past urban fighting, including during the Nazi siege of Stalingrad during World War II. German bombers demolished large parts of the city, aiming to kill Soviet forces. The resulting ruin gave Soviet troops more
hiding places and hindered Germans’ use of tanks in the protracted battle, which Germany lost.

In recent years, Russian forces engaged in urban fighting have tried to undercut defenders by leveling cities, including Grozny in Chechnya and Mariupol in Ukraine. Even a flattened city, though, can thwart an assaulting military. After Russia leveled
Mariupol—a city where Ukrainian fighters used tunnels underneath a giant steel plant—it took Russia nearly three months to take control of it.

The battle came at a significant cost, with between 80% and 90% of the city’s buildings damaged or destroyed. Exiled local officials estimated that some 22,000 people died in a city that had a prewar population of 430,000.

https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/israel-gaza-invasion-urban-warfare-4d1052b6

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