What it takes to capture a city and what to expect in Gaza City

Israel has said it's going to capture Gaza City, and given that Israel suffered an armed invasion of its territory, and a massacre of its people, at the hands of an armed forces based in Gaza City, it is reasonable and justified for Israel to do that to prevent future attacks. The question is what that is going to look like, what it means for civilians in Gaza City, and what standard Israel should be held to as it wages this war. A ground invasion of an urban area where the defenders have had decades to build sophisticated defenses, including militarized tunnels, is far from trivial. The first thing we can say is that it's not going to be an easy operation, and that it's not going to be done with limited, "surgical" strikes. There are a few examples we can compare to, of peer nations that have captured cities with LESS sophisticated defenses than Gaza has. There is the Russian siege of Bakhmut and also the siege of Mariupol and in particular the operation to capture the Azovstal Steel factory. Another example would be the Syrian siege of Allepo, or the US battle for Fallujah. All of these operations were blunt force operations involving heavy bombardment and widespread destruction of buildings and infrastructure. Several of them essentially resulted in the city being completely destroyed, with the majority of buildings damaged and all of the infrastructure in ruins. With Bakhmut, Mariupol, and Allepo the siege of the city included extensive and effectively indiscriminate use of artillery to blast the defenders out of their strong points. The limit on artillery fire was guided more by a desire to conserve ammunition than concern for the target: they fired as many shells as they could, often with rolling barrages, at any area they had intel contained enemy units We can call that a "best practice" for capturing a city, although the word best carries grim irony. It is what modern militaries do in order to capture cities with entrenched defenders. What is the legal standard here? It is not illegal for a legitimate military operation to kill civilians so long as the civilians aren't the direct target, and their deaths are kept to a minimum versus the military objective (proportionate). The problem here is there is really no way to blast the defenders out without blasting any civilians nearby, and Syria, Russia, etc, have argued that it's therefore proportionate to blast the whole city . The US had operated similarly. Is that a legitimate military objective? It probably is. There is likely no way to root Hamas out of Gaza City without extensive shelling and bombing of the city and there is likely no way to prevent future attacks without rooting Hamas out of the city Is that collective punishment? If there was no planned ground invasion, maybe. You can't respond by punishing civilians, but harm to civilians isn't collective punishment if it's an unavoidable side effect of an otherwise legitimate and necessary military action. Israel must find ways to reduce the civilian casualties, but it is not required to avoid them and it is not prevented by law from proceeding with the capture of the city simply because civilians will be killed. So what does this mean for Gaza civilians? The short answer is that they need to get the hell out of there. There really isn't any way to capture a city without a high likelihood of killing everyone in it, and it seems that this is a necessary and justified step for Israel to take This is all assuming we hold Israel to the same standard we hold other countries in similar situations. A lot of people seem to want to hold Israel to a different standard than Russia, Syria or the United States are held. I can't see the logic for that, but it's evident from comment. One thing I am sure is that people who think the same rules apply to a targeted operation to go after specific Hamas commanders (eg Cast Lead) are not thinking about this in terms of being a war and the siege and capture of a city, like Bakhnut.