Urban warfare is now a top concern for Western militaries. The 2023-25 Gaza war shows what intense combat in crowded cities looks like and offers timely lessons for NATO and its allies. Hamas’s surprise attack on October 7, 2023, forced the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) into brutal urban combat against a determined irregular enemy. The fighting showed the decisive impact of drones and armored engineering vehicles, the need to integrate special and conventional forces, and the importance of protecting civilians while managing the information narrative. However, Israel’s unique context—with different rules of engagement, strategic culture, and an adversary lacking advanced weapons or major drone threats—means not all IDF methods fit Western needs. NATO must carefully decide which lessons from Gaza to adopt and which to adapt.
One of the most notable aspects of the IDF’s performance in Gaza has been their transformation in contact. Israel did not expect ever to fight this war. It did not start the campaign with all its current systems, structures, and processes fully in place; instead, it adjusted and innovated during the fighting. New command arrangements, such as a dedicated engineering headquarters for subterranean operations, were established mid-conflict. Likewise, combined-arms practices evolved as lessons from the battlefield were learned, re-learned, quickly absorbed, and shared. Every division has its own lessons-learned cell, mirrored by branch-specific cells in branches such as the Armored Corps and Infantry, all of which contribute to regular conferences and senior staff processes. This multi-layered system has enabled the IDF to deliver an unusually swift response, enabling tactical and organizational innovation at a pace few Western militaries can currently match.
This is a mindset. The IDF has fostered a culture that enables soldiers and junior commanders to innovate in real time, while ensuring that these adaptations are documented, standardized, and disseminated across the force. Innovation is not limited to developing entirely new concepts; more often, it involves recognizing effective battlefield improvisations and integrating them into refined doctrine. Importantly, the IDF is comfortable granting lower-echelon leaders the freedom to solve problems as they see fit. In practice, this meant tactics and techniques not anticipated before the war were rapidly validated and institutionalized during it. This agility to transform in contact has provided Israel with an advantage over its adversaries.
It is crucial to correctly understand Hamas when drawing lessons. Too often, the group is dismissed as just an insurgency or terrorist network, which risks hiding the real scale of the military challenge Israel faced. Before the war, Hamas had geographical brigades, battalions, and companies; conventional light-role capabilities; an organized command system; fortified defensive positions; a recognizable defensive plan; and extensive infrastructure. The fact that Hamas lacked tanks or aircraft did not make it less capable as a warfighting organization; our own paratroopers also operate without heavy armor.
If Hamas now appears as a weakened insurgency, it is only because Israeli tactics systematically dismantled its ability to operate as a semi-conventional force. Recognizing this from the start is essential: what Israel faced was a warfighting adversary possessing thermobaric RPG warheads, not a policing problem.
The IDF adopted combined arms tactics around active protection systems (APS). Without APS, armor is vulnerable to long-range anti-tank missiles such as Kornet, even when infantry screens the tanks. APS countered stand-off missiles, shifting the threat to close-range attacks. Infantry moved within a 100-meter bubble around tanks, creating integrated teams better able to defend themselves.
Special operations forces (SOF) illustrate this point. Israel fields several types of SOF. In Gaza, direct-action units became high-tempo reconnaissance and raiding teams in urban combat. Rather than working only on isolated covert missions, SOF served as essential parts of the combined-arms system, leveraging their agility to drive tempo and collect intelligence in urban battles. This approach directly challenges Western ideas that SOF have limited roles in conventional campaigns.
The Gaza war proves Israel did not abandon technology. The IDF combined advanced technology and older, proven equipment at scale. Tools like ISR, APS, and loitering munitions were decisive only because the IDF used them broadly and integrated them into operations. Manpower and volume remain key in high-intensity urban warfare. Israel succeeded by combining technology and mass, not shifting away from either.
Key lessons from the Gaza conflict highlight that success in urban warfare relies on more than tactical proficiency. Protecting civilians is a decisive factor for legitimacy and freedom of action. The conflict showed that civilian harm can undermine strategic goals and that the international community will scrutinize every action.
Another major lesson is the need to actively manage the information environment to maintain support. Even with steps to limit collateral damage, losing control of the narrative can cost diplomatic backing. The IDF’s use of civilian evacuation warnings and embedded legal advisors suggests practices NATO should evaluate for adaptation.
Information warfare emerged as a vital lesson. Hamas’s use of propaganda shaped perceptions regardless of battlefield realities. Western militaries must prioritize the release of real-time information and integrate civilian risk reduction into strategic communication; these are essential components for success in future urban operations.
Operational and doctrinal takeaways. The urban battle in Gaza reaffirmed several core principles of high-intensity combat while unveiling new areas that Western doctrine must address. Combined-arms integration at the lowest levels proved crucial. In Gaza’s narrow streets, infantry, armor, engineers, and drones had to work together at platoon and company levels, as no single arm could survive on its own. IDF units equipped with substantial organic firepower, including tanks, anti-tank teams, and loitering drones directly supporting small infantry units, consistently overcame Hamas ambushes. This reinforces the longstanding Western doctrine about combined arms and mission command, demonstrating the importance of delegating decision-making and resources to junior leaders.
Key lessons are: (1) urban units need essential heavy firepower and should be enabled to act independently if isolated; (2) agility and institutional learning accelerate battlefield adaptation, as shown when the IDF quickly updated tactics in response to new threats; and (3) NATO forces should develop rapid, real-time learning processes, such as lesson-sharing and adaptable TTPs, to outpace adversaries during extended combat.
Technological lessons from Gaza are clear: widespread and integrated use of drones is transforming urban warfare. Small drones gave units tactical intelligence and precision, fundamentally altering street-level fighting. This shift underscores the need for Western militaries to equip and train units to operate unmanned systems in future conflicts.
Meanwhile, Hamas’s deployment of drones and the saturation of the airwaves led to significant C2 2 challenges. Radio communications were often degraded or jammed due to the high volume of electronic warfare and signals in the urban setting. Western forces must prepare for this reality by equipping units with organic drones and training them to operate them, alongside investing in counter-drone systems and resilient communication backups.
Another key technical area was combat engineering. Gaza’s battlefield featured extensive Hamas tunnel networks and fortified buildings, which the IDF addressed with specialized engineering units and heavy armored bulldozers. These proved crucial for breaching walls, clearing rubble, and demolishing tunnel entrances, tasks that standard infantry or armor would find challenging.
Western militaries should draw lessons from this by enhancing their urban breaching and subterranean warfare capabilities, such as deploying armored engineering vehicles to clear obstacles, training units in tunnel detection and clearance, and equipping troops with tools to rapidly fortify or demolish structures as needed. The IDF’s integration of tunnel-clearing teams with surface combat units serves as a model for simultaneous above- and below-ground operations that Western doctrine can adopt.
Sustainment and force management insights. High-intensity urban combat places heavy demands on logistics and personnel, which must be anticipated during peacetime. In Gaza, despite fighting close to its own territory, the IDF struggled to keep units supplied due to consumption rates of ammunition, explosives, fuel, and basic supplies. For instance, IDF artillery units fired over 90,000 shells in the first weeks, quickly exhausting their stockpiles. Frontline units often used munitions and breaching charges faster than expected and resorted to innovative resupply methods, exposing gaps in logistics planning.
Western armies should heed this warning by stockpiling and forward-deploying critical supplies (notably munitions, fuel, and spare parts) for any potential urban conflict. Logistics units must remain adaptable to support ad hoc combined-arms task forces; modular support elements and cross-training for logistics personnel are essential to ensure that resupply keeps pace with rapidly changing tactical formations.
Furthermore, last-mile resupply in cities is dangerous. Every logistic resupply operation is a combat operation; effectively, an advance to contact. Narrow streets, rubble, and enemy ambushes make convoy movements risky. The IDF mitigated this by deploying armored vehicles (including bulldozers) to escort and physically push supplies under fire. Western forces should invest in protected mobility for logistics, such as armored trucks and unmanned ground cargo vehicles, and practice securing supply routes with engineers and infantry.
The medical support component is equally vital: Israeli forces saved many lives by deploying medical teams forward. The IDF Medical Corps has emphasized speedy evacuation, either by helicopter or ambulance, to the closest hospital from either inside the strip or on the border, usually either Soroka in Be’er Sheva or Barzilai in Ashkelon, whilst continually treating and monitoring the wounded troops, enabling wounded evacuation within the “golden hour” despite urban chaos. NATO militaries should incorporate robust forward medical infrastructure into urban warfare plans, including armored ambulances, casualty collection points in secure buildings, and even drones to deliver medical supplies and provide casualty evacuation (casevac) capability.
Sustaining troop endurance is another key lesson: urban combat is both physically and mentally draining. The IDF has rotated frontline units and used fresh reserve battalions to relieve troops manning defensive perimeters. Western commanders should similarly plan for rest and rotation cycles during intense urban operations to prevent unit exhaustion and degradation over time.
Doctrine and training implications. Some of the lessons outlined above require updates to Western military doctrine and training programs. Urban operations should no longer be viewed as a niche or a last resort; they are increasingly unavoidable in modern warfare. Gaza’s experience illustrates that urban combat necessitates its own doctrine, integrating combined-arms tactics, strict mitigation of civilian casualties, and information operations.
Western militaries would benefit from conducting large-scale urban-warfare exercises to apply these lessons immediately. Training should cover fighting in damaged terrain full of rubble (the IDF found that normal tactics falter once entire blocks are reduced to ruins); contested communications drills where units operate with jamming or network outages; tunnel and underground scenarios with dedicated engineering teams; and intense information warfare simulations to practice countering enemy propaganda in real time.
Furthermore, NATO armies should enhance their Rules of Engagement (ROE) and legal frameworks for urban combat, considering the complexities of the Gaza Strip. Effective management plans are necessary for scenarios such as managing human-shield situations or large-scale civilian evacuations. This will ensure commanders have clear guidance that balances military necessity with humanitarian concerns. The Gaza war has demonstrated that some Israeli approaches, like aggressive bombardment or forward-leaning defense postures, incur a high political and international cost. Western forces may need to conduct their own risk calculus in this regard, depending on the levels of domestic support for any given conflict and the broader public appetite for collateral damage.
Source: Andrew Fox, “Tactical Lessons From Gaza” Centre For New Middle East, (November 2025).