Part 5/10:
The IDF’s stance highlights the grave difficulties of conducting urban warfare in Gaza's densely populated, impoverished, and largely devastated landscape. The challenge is compounded by Hamas's tactics of embedding fighters within Palestinian civilians, making it nearly impossible to distinguish combatants from non-combatants. This mirrors previous experiences of US and NATO forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, where efforts to "drain the ocean"—i.e., eliminate militants hiding among civilians—have proven complex and often counterproductive.