The world waits for Israel's big push

As the world waits for Israel to mount a land, sea and air attack on Gaza, it has to be assumed that Hamas is making preparations, too. Already they are setting up obstructions to prevent desperate Palestinians from leaving northern Gaza for the south. Huge numbers of Palestinians stuck on their way to the "safer" area in the south will complicate Israel's advance. Israel has promised to avoid civilian casualties as far as is possible and the whole world has urged restraint. But war is war. Israel has its objectives and intends to carry them out and whatever obstacles Hamas puts in the way, Israeli ground forces will attempt to get round them. Civilians are going to die. It's tragic and inevitable. The greatest test for Israeli special forces will be to find and eliminate Hamas who are hiding underground in the huge number of tunnels that run under Gaza where the hostages will be held. This isn't urban warfare. This is tunnel warfare and lessons learned from Vietnam to Iraq to Afghanistan to the 2014 war in Gaza will tell the Israelis that this sort of combat has more dangers than almost any other form of warfare. There are no guarantees that Israel will be able to achieve all of its objectives, despite the immense experience and skills of the Israeli army.