Lessons for Western Militaries from the Gaza War
Israel’s experience in Gaza provides a sobering preview of what high-intensity urban warfare can entail, and how modern militaries must evolve to achieve decisive and ethical victories in any future conflict.
As the world transitions from a values-based international order to a transactional, multipolar framework, Western militaries outside the US are going to have to rearm rapidly following the withdrawal of US security guarantees. While the military lessons from Ukraine have been widely discussed, those from Israel’s 7 October war have largely been overlooked. The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) have faced intense scrutiny and a steep learning curve since Hamas launched its surprise attack on 7 October 2023. During the punishing months of fierce urban combat in Gaza, the IDF made significant military advancements but also encountered critical challenges.
Gaza’s densely populated neighbourhoods and Hamas’s guerrilla militias are, respectively, very different from Eastern Europe’s open plains and Russia’s armed forces. Nevertheless, Western commanders can draw a number of important lessons from the IDF’s successes and setbacks that may be useful to future operations on Europe’s eastern flank and further afield. From drone warfare and the use of armour to urban command-and-control and civilian protection, Israel’s experience in Gaza provides a sobering preview of what high-intensity urban warfare can entail, and how modern militaries must evolve to achieve decisive and ethical victories in any future conflict.
Drones and Counter-Drone Measures
One of the clearest takeaways from Gaza (and Ukraine) has been the revolutionary impact of drones on the battlefield. Israel employed hundreds of small drones for reconnaissance and attack, providing even junior infantry units with an eye in the sky and a precise punch. These quadcopters—like the Xtend models used to scout Hamas tunnels and drop grenades—enabled Israeli soldiers to clear buildings and tunnels with reduced risk. Western forces have already taken note: the British Army tested Israeli-made drones on Salisbury Plain in late 2023 to explore how this technology can enhance UK units. It is now evident that drones dramatically increase situational awareness and precision-strike capability at the lowest levels.
However, the IDF has also learned that drone proliferation cuts both ways. When both sides operated swarms of unmanned aerial systems (UAS), the electromagnetic spectrum became saturated, disrupting communications and the identification of friend or foe. On several occasions, Israeli units even shot down their own drones amid the chaos, prompting urgent improvements in training and coordination. This serves as a cautionary tale for Britain. Any clash in Eastern Europe will likely feature large numbers of drones on all sides, as seen in Ukraine, so British troops must be prepared with robust counter-drone measures. This means investing in short-range air defences and jamming systems, enhancing digital discipline to deconflict drone frequencies, and employing traditional backup methods when high-tech networks fail. By honing anti-drone drills and electronic warfare skills now, British forces can avoid being blinded or paralysed by the very tools meant to empower them.
Command and Control in Urban Combat
Fighting in Gaza’s labyrinthine streets highlighted the significance of agile command and control (C2) in urban warfare. The IDF had to manage 360-degree threats—gunmen emerging from the front, flanks, or rear, ambushes from subterranean tunnels below, and drones overhead. To address this, Israeli commanders adapted how they organised and directed units in the city. For example, to minimise friendly-fire risks in confined city blocks, IDF battalions were assigned non-contiguous zones: each unit had its own narrow movement corridor alongside a fire support corridor. This innovative approach prevented overlapping fields of fire and fratricide. It also involved combining arms at the lowest level—tanks, engineers, and infantry operated in tight-knit teams down to the platoon level. Small-unit leaders were empowered to make quick decisions, as urban battles unfold at close quarters with little time to wait for orders from afar.
The British Army should consider these adaptations when preparing for operations in Eastern European cities. Urban combat in places like Warsaw or Tallinn would likewise require decentralised command, flexible boundaries, and independent action by junior officers. British units must train to fight “all-around,” securing their flanks and rear at every step. They may need to reduce traditional hierarchy at times, pushing combined-arms groupings down to the company or platoon level so that infantry, armour, drones, and sappers all operate under a unified local command. The Gaza experience also highlights the need for rigorous urban communication protocols—radios may fail or networks may jam, so British troops should practise contingency plans for maintaining command and control under chaotic city conditions. In essence, the IDF’s experience emphasises that command in urban warfare must be agile, decentralised, and ready for multi-dimensional threats.
Use of Armour
Before the Gaza campaign, a number of pundits wondered if tanks and armoured vehicles still had a place in modern urban warfare. Israel’s experience provided a nuanced answer. The IDF’s Merkava battle-tanks and Namer armoured personnel-carriers demonstrated their value on the frontline, offering mobile protection and heavy firepower that infantry alone could not. Time and again, well-armoured vehicles saved lives by withstanding improvised bombs and sniper fire as they led the advance into Hamas strongholds.
Crucially, Israel equipped many of its tanks with the “Trophy” active protection system (APS), which intercepts incoming anti-tank rockets. This proved to be a lifesaver: Hamas fighters firing RPGs at close range struggled to penetrate Israeli armour, as Trophy intercepted many warheads before impact. In the rare instances where Hamas managed to hit a tank—by exploiting blind spots or when the APS magazines were exhausted—the IDF quickly implemented software fixes to improve the system. The result was that Israeli armour sustained far fewer losses than one might expect, given the abundance of anti-tank weapons in Gaza.
These systems were complemented by the modular nature of IDF armoured vehicle design. By July 2024, 2,831 armoured vehicles in Division 162 had sustained battle damage. The ability to swap out damaged modules quickly allowed every single one to return to combat. Only four were destroyed: two main battle-tanks and two infantry fighting vehicles. This gives Western forces a clear direction on how to best design armour to maximise sustainability and repair in high-intensity combat.
That said, the battles also highlighted how armour must be utilised properly to survive urban combat. Tanks operating alone or separated from infantry were vulnerable to ambush. The IDF mitigated this by consistently pairing vehicles for mutual support and keeping troops nearby. In fact, Israeli tanks were often deployed in pairs, allowing one to cover the other’s blind spots—effectively overlapping their defensive systems to double the protection. Engineers with armoured bulldozers cleared rubble and booby traps ahead of the columns, preventing vehicles from becoming bogged down. These tactics made a decisive difference.
Western armoured units should incorporate the same principles: never send a tank down a city street without infantry scouts at its sides and another armoured vehicle covering its back. Our militaries would also benefit from accelerating the fitting of APS to our own tanks and fighting vehicles—a lesson painfully illustrated by Ukraine’s battlefields. Now that modern anti-tank missiles are ubiquitous, the combination of advanced-protection technology and combined-arms tactics is essential for armour to thrive in urban settings. As Gaza demonstrated, tanks remain formidable in city fights, but only when used as part of a tight-knit team, not as lone juggernauts.
Andrew Fox
Civilian Protection
Urban warfare is not only a duel between soldiers, it also unfolds amid civilian populations, raising agonising ethical and strategic dilemmas. Nowhere was this more evident than in Gaza, where more than two million civilians became trapped in the crossfire between the IDF and Hamas. Israel faced global criticism for the scale of Palestinian civilian casualties, compelling the IDF to defend its actions and adjust its tactics.
To its credit, the IDF took notable measures to mitigate harm to non-combatants. These included mass-evacuation warnings—phone calls, text messages, and leaflets urging residents to flee areas about to see combat—as well as the practice of “roof knocking,” a tactic of firing a small warning munition at a building to prompt civilians to leave before a larger strike. Israeli pilots reportedly aborted airstrikes at the last moment on multiple occasions when civilians were spotted near targets. These steps reflect an institutional desire to limit collateral damage. In some cases, the IDF arguably went further than most armies, with one analyst noting that Israel “implemented more measures to prevent civilian casualties than any other nation in history” (a claim others dispute).
Meticulous planning for civilian protection is non-negotiable—not only as a moral imperative but also as a strategic one.
And yet, the tragedy of Gaza shows that good intentions and advanced warnings only go so far in war. Despite Israeli precautions, the sheer intensity of the bombardment and Hamas’s tactic of using human shields led to the deaths of thousands of innocents. For Western militaries, the lesson is twofold. First, meticulous planning for civilian protection is non-negotiable—not only as a moral imperative but also as a strategic one. Any European or allied operation in Eastern Europe would likely occur in populated areas (consider the dense cities of the Baltics or the towns of eastern Ukraine) under the scrutiny of a global media and an adversary eager to exploit any civilian suffering.
European forces must therefore incorporate civilian-risk mitigation from day one: establishing evacuation corridors, timing assaults to minimise the presence of bystanders, using precision munitions with strict fire discipline, and coordinating with humanitarian agencies when possible.
Second, Western forces should prepare for the realities of such operations: even with precautions, urban fighting will tragically result in civilian harm. The key is to minimise it and to demonstrate that every reasonable step is being taken to avoid unnecessary suffering. This necessitates constantly learning and adapting tactics during the fight—an “iterative process” rather than a one-time checklist. By training troops in ethical decision-making and robust rules of engagement, and by deploying specialised legal and cultural advisors with units, Western militaries can strive to uphold humanitarian standards even in the fog of war. In doing so, they not only protect civilian lives, they also protect their own legitimacy on the world stage.
Integration of Special Forces with Conventional Troops
Another notable aspect of the IDF’s Gaza campaign was the close integration of Israel’s elite special forces with its conventional brigades. Urban warfare in Gaza was not just fought block by block on the surface; it also extended into a shadowy underworld of tunnels, where Hamas maintained command centres, arms depots, and ambush teams. The IDF paired special-operations units with regular infantry and armour units during the offensive to tackle this threat. Israeli special forces—including the naval commandos (Shayetet 13) and specialised combat engineers (Yahalom)—were assigned at the brigade level to focus on clearing Hamas’s subterranean labyrinth.
Meanwhile, the conventional troops secured the surface above. This synchronised “surface and sub-surface” approach proved far more effective than earlier attempts to clear buildings first and tunnels later, which had allowed Hamas fighters to emerge behind Israeli lines. By operating in tandem—elite commandos underground and regular forces above—the IDF denied Hamas the ability to manoeuvre freely below the city or to launch surprise attacks from tunnel exit points.
For Western forces, the key takeaway is to break down the silos between special forces and the broader military during high-intensity combat. In any Eastern European scenario, special forces will be invaluable for hitting high-value targets, gathering intelligence, or leading asymmetric operations. However, as the IDF demonstrated, their impact is maximised when tightly integrated with conventional forces, rather than operating in isolation. British planners should practice integrating special forces teams with larger formations for specific missions—whether counter-sniper operations in a city, disabling enemy communication hubs, or hunting mobile missile launchers—ensuring clear two-way communication channels.
The Gaza experience showed that close cooperation demands a culture of trust: even Israel’s units faced challenges with information-sharing between secretive special ops and line infantry. Western forces can address this by conducting joint training, establishing liaison officers, and utilising technology to share live feeds and intelligence across units securely. When elite troops and regular forces operate as one integrated unit, the whole becomes greater than the sum of its parts, allowing for a coordinated approach to complex threats like tunnel networks or fortified strongholds. In future conflicts, whether against hybrid militias or peer armies, the synergy between special and conventional capabilities will be decisive in winning battles.
Air Power
The Gaza war reaffirmed the adage that whoever controls the skies holds a decisive advantage on the ground. Israeli air power—from F-16 and F-35 fighter jets to attack helicopters and armed drones—played an outsized role in shaping the battlefield in Israel’s favour. In the initial phases after 7 October, the Israeli Air Force pounded thousands of targets across Gaza, from Hamas rocket launchers to command bunkers, softening enemy defences and isolating their fighters. As ground forces moved in, air support remained ever-present.
One lesson from this campaign is that air-delivered precision firepower can make even the most entrenched urban defender vulnerable. Multi-storey buildings and bunker complexes that might have withstood artillery were often no match for a 500-pound (227 kg) guided bomb placed precisely on target. The IDF found that Hamas squads could rarely mass for a counterattack without being spotted by Israeli surveillance and targeted by an airstrike. Indeed, Israeli analysts observed that, once Hamas’s positions had been identified, “they could be reduced” by air power, whose weight of munitions outmatched anything ground artillery could launch.
In essence, air supremacy allowed the IDF to bypass many of the advantages that urban terrain typically gives a defender—at least in Gaza, where Hamas lacked any significant anti-air capabilities. It is telling that Israeli officers coined the term “devastated terrain warfare” to describe their method of levelling resistance from above before moving in.
For Western forces, this highlights both opportunity and the need for caution. If European forces ever have to assault an enemy-held city (for instance, liberating a Baltic town seized by hostile forces), integrating air strikes with ground manoeuvres will be crucial. Commanders will need to ensure tight air-ground coordination through trained forward air controllers and real-time intelligence sharing, just as the IDF did.
Unlike Hamas, Russia—which possesses robust surface-to-air missiles and fighter aircraft—will not easily concede the skies.
However, unlike Hamas, a near-peer Eastern European adversary would not easily concede the skies. Russia, for example, possesses robust surface-to-air missiles and fighter aircraft. Gaining air superiority could be far more challenging for forces in a European theatre than it was for Israel over Gaza. The West must therefore prepare to fight under contested skies. This might mean relying more on long-range precision fires from ground launchers or drones if manned aircraft are restricted.
It also means units must have effective air defence of their own. The IDF noted that “buildings do not offer significant protection” against modern air-delivered ordnance—a stark warning that troops digging into an Eastern European city would need cover from air defences to avoid devastation from enemy bombs.
In sum, Israel’s use of air power in Gaza demonstrated what modern strike capabilities can achieve but also hinted at the vulnerability of anyone on the receiving end without cover. Western forces must strive to maximise the former advantage and mitigate the latter risk, investing in both precision-strike and anti-air systems as they prepare for future conflict.
Tactical Intelligence
In the Gaza campaign, the IDF leveraged real-time surveillance techniques—from constant drone “swarms” overhead to AI-assisted target identification—to achieve unprecedented battlefield awareness. A senior IDF intelligence officer noted that roughly ninety percent of targets were being identified and struck in real time thanks to a mix of AI and hundreds of intelligence analysts working in concert. This enabled Israeli units to rapidly detect and hit threats such as Hamas rocket teams and tunnel entrances, often within minutes of pinpointing them.
Drones proved especially valuable: multiple layers of IDF unmanned aircraft (from large Hermes 450 UAVs down to small quadcopters) created an unblinking eye over Gaza, closing the loop between sensor and shooter. These real-time feeds and pattern-recognition algorithms helped troops distinguish militants from civilians and follow enemies who tried to disappear into dense urban terrain. Together, these tactical intelligence tools allowed the IDF to pre-empt ambushes and track militant movements even amid the chaos of urban combat, dramatically improving force protection and strike precision.
Oscar Clarke
On the other hand, Western forces must adapt these lessons to different conditions in Eastern Europe. Unlike Gaza—a confined battlespace where Israel enjoyed total drone supremacy—a European theatre could be a contested environment with sophisticated Russian air defences and electronic warfare. Still, the core insight holds: persistent surveillance and rapid targeting are battle-winners. The war in Ukraine has likewise shown that armies “need to integrate new sensors, drones and software” to handle full-spectrum conflicts. The West should invest in fleets of drones and AI-driven analytics to monitor real-time adversary manoeuvres, even across large, open terrains.
Working with allies, units will need resilient networks to fuse SIGINT (signals intelligence), satellite imagery, and UAV feeds into one common operational picture—much as the IDF did with its all-source “target bank.” Of course, the Western militaries will face different challenges: unlike Hamas, a high-tech foe like Russia can contest the skies and spectrum. Drone operations must be hardened against jamming or shoot-down, and reconnaissance assets may have to keep a standoff distance. Nonetheless, if they can establish reliable eyes in the sky, commanders can expect a similar boost in battlefield awareness and responsiveness. The takeaway from Gaza is that a military that integrates drones, AI, and tactical SIGINT can observe and orient faster than the enemy—a decisive advantage whether in Middle Eastern cities or on the plains of Eastern Europe.
Operational Intelligence
Israel’s operations after 7 October showcased highly effective intelligence-sharing across branches of the military. The IDF broke down silos between its air, land, naval, and intelligence arms—creating joint command centres where information flowed freely from collectors to shooters. Field command hubs were fed a unified stream of intel from human spies, SIGINT units, drones, satellites, and cyber analysts in real time. This meant a tip from one source could instantly queue up a target for all branches. One anecdote illustrates the speed of integration: an IDF targeting commander, while speaking to a reporter, received new field intelligence, relayed it to an awaiting air unit, and within minutes a Hamas position was destroyed.
In another case, naval gunners were able to pre-empt an ambush on ground troops after a centralised intel cell picked up the threat—the warning passed through a targeting centre to a missile boat, which shelled the attackers before the trap could be sprung. Such seamless coordination between Army, Air Force, Navy, and intelligence elements was a force-multiplier. All forces drew from the same real-time intelligence picture, enabling the IDF to respond to battlefield events at lightning speed.
Notably, Israel also integrated its cyber operations into this loop: Unit 8200 (signals intelligence/cyber) worked hand-in-glove with operational commanders, feeding them intercepts and even conducting hacks to facilitate strikes. The result was an incredibly efficient kill-chain, where multi-source intelligence was synthesised and acted upon in moments, dramatically boosting operational tempo and effectiveness.
Equally important, the IDF stepped up counter-intelligence efforts to shield its plans from Hamas and Hezbollah. Israeli security services tightened operational security and hunted down leaks to deny the enemy any insights. For example, in November, the IDF’s cyber units exposed fake social-media profiles run by Hamas agents that were attempting to befriend IDF soldiers and glean sensitive information. By shutting down these honey traps, Israel blunted Hamas’s espionage efforts. This vigilance meant Hamas and Hezbollah were often fighting blind, even as Israel’s own forces shared information freely among themselves.
For the West, the lesson is to emulate this seamless multi-domain collaboration while maintaining a strong counter-intelligence shield. Commanders operating in Eastern Europe should strive for an IDF-style “fused” intelligence system: real-time sharing between ground units, air, and naval forces, and intelligence-gathering agencies like GCHQ, as well as with allies. A common operating picture that pools intel from all sources will help forces stay ahead of an adversary’s moves.
At the same time, intelligence must assume that a savvy adversary will attempt to penetrate or deceive—much as Russia might use spies, drones, or disinformation to snoop on European deployments. Rigorous operational security, frequent counter-intel sweeps, and training troops to recognise social-engineering tricks (like Hamas’s phoney profiles) are vital. The IDF’s experience shows that true information dominance comes from both unfettered friendly information-sharing and denial of information to the enemy. The West’s challenge will be doing this on a coalition scale, but the payoff—faster decision cycles and fewer surprises—is well worth it.
Strategic Intelligence
Israel’s experience in this conflict underlined the importance of adaptive and forward-looking strategic intelligence. After the shock of Hamas’s 7 October massacre (a strategic intel failure), the IDF had to rapidly assess enemy capabilities and anticipate unconventional tactics to recalibrate its approach. The war in Gaza pitted Israel against an asymmetric adversary deeply embedded in urban terrain, using tunnels, human shields, and deception to offset Israel’s technological edge. Israeli intelligence had to predict and counter these methods—for instance, mapping out Hamas’s elaborate tunnel network (the “Gaza Metro”), and devising new techniques to collapse or flood those tunnels without catastrophic collateral damage.
Strategists also had to game out enemy information tactics: Hamas sought to manipulate global opinion and lure Israel into missteps, so the IDF’s intelligence and public-affairs teams worked hand in hand to pre-empt and debunk the enemy’s claims in real time. Crucially, Israel’s strategic intel apparatus was stretched to handle multiple fronts. Even as fighting raged in Gaza, the IDF was monitoring Hezbollah in Lebanon to gauge the odds of a second front opening. Indeed, Israeli intelligence discovered that roughly 3,000 Hezbollah fighters were massed near the northern border, ready to strike in the days after 7 October. Recognising this looming danger, the IDF quickly diverted four brigades northward on the day of the Hamas attack—a move that neutralised Hezbollah’s element of surprise and likely thwarted a coordinated multi-front war. By pivoting resources and attention so rapidly, Israel prevented an existential crisis. This underscores a key lesson: strategic intelligence must be flexible, continuously updating threat assessments and shifting focus as new threats emerge.
Just as importantly, Israel had to counter enemy deception and propaganda at the strategic level. Hamas and its allies repeatedly tried to mislead observers or stage information wins. A notable example was the explosion at Gaza’s Al-Ahli hospital on 17 October, initially (and falsely) blamed on an Israeli airstrike. In response, the IDF swiftly released intelligence evidence—including an intercepted Hamas phone call where operatives admit the blast was caused by a misfired Palestinian rocket—to rebut the accusations.
Richard Landes
By moving quickly to share declassified intercepts and satellite imagery, Israeli intelligence blunted a major disinformation attack. This highlighted how the information environment has become a front in itself: the IDF treated intelligence not only as a means to target enemies, but also as a tool to expose enemy lies and influence the narrative. Overall, Israel’s strategic intelligence had to be versatile—simultaneously assessing enemy capabilities, anticipating asymmetric tactics, and moulding the info environment—and willing to acknowledge mistakes and adapt (the initial failure to anticipate Hamas’s onslaught prompted serious introspection and reforms). The painful surprise of 7 October taught Israel to expect the unexpected, and thereafter its intelligence community operated with a mindset of constant vigilance and adjustment.
Hamas and its allies proved adept at exploiting every instance of collateral damage for propaganda value—often exaggerating or manipulating facts to portray the IDF as indiscriminate killers.
The battle for Gaza was not won or lost by arms alone; it was also a battle of narratives waged across television screens and social media feeds worldwide. The high civilian death toll and images of devastated neighbourhoods became rallying cries for critics of Israel, fuelling protests and diplomatic pressure. Hamas and its allies proved adept at exploiting every instance of collateral damage for propaganda value—often exaggerating or manipulating facts to portray the IDF as indiscriminate killers. This information war posed a strategic threat to Israel, at times constraining its freedom of action.
The IDF discovered the hard way that tactical victories can be undermined by losing the public-relations battle. For instance, Israeli officials were caught on the back foot as global media relied on Gaza’s Hamas-linked Health Ministry for casualty figures, which dominated the narrative of the war’s human cost. Israel’s military released information about Hamas’s abuses and its own mitigation efforts, but often too slowly or inconsistently to counter the deluge of graphic images emerging from Gaza. Missteps in messaging—such as overhyped claims about Hamas command posts under hospitals that were not immediately substantiated—further eroded credibility. In short, the IDF’s information operations lagged behind the pace of the 24/7 news cycle, a lapse that Hamas exploited to great effect.
The West should heed this lesson: controlling the narrative is nearly as important as controlling territory in modern warfare. Any engagement in Eastern Europe would unfold under intense public scrutiny, with adversaries ready to twist events to their advantage. The militaries and governments must communicate proactively and transparently to avoid strategic setbacks. This entails rapidly releasing factual updates (including acknowledging mistakes when they occur) instead of allowing rumours to fill the void.
It requires providing evidence for claims—for example, if forces strike a legitimate military target that unfortunately harms civilians, they should quickly explain the necessity and context, and perhaps even share declassified drone footage where feasible.
Armed forces should also coordinate their messages closely with political leadership, to prevent the kind of mixed messages that plagued Israel’s efforts. Further investment in dedicated information warfare units—skilled in monitoring enemy propaganda, countering disinformation, and effectively telling our side of the story—will be crucial. In the digital age, every smartphone is a battlefield, and public opinion can determine the outcome of a campaign. By learning from the IDF’s struggles in this arena, the West can strive to win both the physical fight and the moral narrative, maintaining domestic and international support even when war gets ugly.
For the intelligence community, these strategic-level lessons are particularly salient. In any Eastern European contingency, forces could face a mix of conventional and irregular warfare—much as Israel did, albeit with a state adversary. A conflict with Russia, for example, might involve heavy armour and airpower but also hybrid tactics: cyberattacks on UK infrastructure, Spetsnaz or proxy fighters sowing chaos behind the front lines, and a torrent of propaganda to undermine Western unity. Intelligence must therefore be as nimble and sceptical as the Israelis learned to be. This means rigorously challenging assumptions and “worst-case thinking” to avoid blind spots—the kind of complacency that contributed to Israel’s surprise on 7 October.
Intelligence analysts should study an opponent’s asymmetric toolbox (for instance, Russia’s use of mercenaries, deniable “little green men,” energy blackmail, and so on) and anticipate how those might be used to offset military strengths. Just as Israel had to prepare for tunnel warfare and human shields, the West must prepare for unorthodox tactics like false-flag operations or chemical sabotage that a cornered adversary might employ.
Another lesson is the need to monitor multiple theatres: like Israel, Europe could find itself juggling crises (for instance, Baltic states could be under threat while it deals with unrest in the Balkans). Maintaining strategic overwatch on all potential flashpoints—and allocating resources flexibly—will be key to preventing strategic surprise. Finally, the IDF’s experience shows the value of integrating strategic communications with intelligence. The West should be ready to rapidly share evidence to counter enemy disinformation, as Britain and the US did when exposing false Russian pretexts for the 2022 Ukraine invasion.
In sum, the military-intelligence community should cultivate the same agility and breadth of vision that Israel was forced to adopt: expect hybrid and “asymmetric” warfare tactics, respond with creativity and speed, and actively shape the information sphere so that truth defeats falsehood.
The role of cyber operations in Israel’s campaign was unprecedented, blurring the line between digital and kinetic warfare. The IDF launched offensive cyber measures to disrupt enemy command-and-control and communications networks. For instance, as it began ground operations in late October, Israel carried out strikes on Gaza’s telecom infrastructure that plunged the territory into an internet and phone blackout. This combined cyber/kinetic action hampered Hamas’s ability to coordinate forces or broadcast propaganda videos during critical battles.
On the defensive side, Israeli cyber units worked feverishly to harden their own networks after 7 October, when Hamas cyber attacks and Iran-backed hackers sought to exploit vulnerabilities. Throughout the conflict, Israel also leveraged cyber-based intelligence for strategic effect: the military routinely published intercepted communications and hacked surveillance footage to expose Hamas’s tactics and human-rights abuses.
By releasing these materials (with minimal delay) on social media and in press briefings, the IDF effectively countered enemy propaganda in real time. One notable example was the intercepted Hamas call about the Al-Ahli hospital blast, which Israel shared online to undermine Hamas’s false narrative. In essence, cyber intelligence and info-war capabilities became a force multiplier—the IDF not only physically hit Hamas’s networks, but also fought in the information space, debunking the militants’ claims and highlighting the truth of the conflict. Israel’s use of hackers and analysts alongside soldiers shows how modern wars are fought on servers and social platforms as much as in the streets.
Moving forward, the West should fully integrate cyber and information warfare into its military-intelligence doctrine. Any confrontation with a peer opponent will feature a significant cyber dimension—likely far more intense than what Israel faced with Hamas. A Russian campaign, for example, could begin with waves of cyberattacks to knock out European communications, scramble logistics, and spread confusion.
The IDF’s experience demonstrates the value of offensive cyber actions to throw the enemy off balance. Whether that means hacking enemy comms, jamming their signals, or even confiscating illicit funds (as Israel did by seizing millions in cryptocurrency from Iran-backed groups) to sap their finances, cyber tools can erode an adversary’s capacity to wage war.
At the same time, we must be prepared to counter enemy propaganda and disinformation on a massive scale. Moscow has long shown proficiency in information warfare—from deepfake videos to troll farms—aiming to skew perceptions. The lesson from Israel is to proactively put out factual intelligence to challenge lies. This could mean quickly declassifying satellite images or intercepts if Russia tries to fabricate an atrocity or justify aggression, much as the IDF did to set the record straight on Gaza.
Importantly, the cyber defence of military and critical infrastructure needs to be rock-solid. Even Israel, a “Start-Up Nation,” found that its cyber defences had gaps: over fifteen Iran-linked hacker groups launched attacks on Israel after 7 October, hitting targets like hospitals and leaking sensitive data. In one chilling scenario, hackers obtained Israeli soldiers’ medical records and could have altered blood type data, potentially putting wounded troops at risk of mistreatment.
For the West, this is a warning to invest heavily in cybersecurity and inter-agency coordination before a crisis. Drills that simulate communications outages, malware infections, or social-media misinformation cascades are as important as live-fire military exercises. By fortifying networks and educating personnel (and the public) on recognising disinformation, we can blunt the effectiveness of enemy cyber strikes.
Ultimately, the IDF showed that success in cyber and information warfare comes from offence and defence: disrupt the enemy’s systems and lies, while securing your own. Our intelligence community, learning from Gaza and Lebanon, should ensure that, in any future conflict, its “digital frontline” is as robust and agile as its traditional forces—if not more so.
Conclusion
No two conflicts are identical. The IDF fought in Gaza under circumstances unique to Israel’s security situation—against an irregular foe, in a small coastal strip, with both home turf advantages and challenges. Troops operating in Eastern Europe would face a far more conventional enemy operating in expansive terrain. Yet the past months have revealed some commonalities of urban warfare in the 21st century. Drones will swarm. Communications will falter. Tanks will continue to rumble down shattered streets, requiring clever tactics to survive. Civilians will be in the line of fire, testing the ethics and discipline of every soldier. Elite units may find themselves fighting hand-in-hand with grunts. Air power will deliver sledgehammer blows, successful intelligence fusion will decide the outcome of battles, and the court of global opinion will render its own verdict.
Israel’s campaign in Gaza since 7 October 2023 has been a crucible of adaptation. The West is running out of time to absorb these lessons before a future conflict necessitates similar adaptation in the heat of battle. The overarching lesson is balance: integrate the IDF’s tactical innovations with a clear understanding of how engagements would differ against a near-peer adversary. By doing so, our militaries can honour the IDF’s sacrifices by ensuring that if armed forces are ever thrust into a brutal urban fight—whether defending our allies or safeguarding our own national interests—they will be as prepared, lethal, and restrained as necessary. The fog of war will always be thick, but the experiences of Gaza can illuminate the path to better strategy on the streets of any city where our soldiers may one day have to fight.
