A very difficult military campaign ahead

A vital point is made why destroying the Hamas, and freeing hostages, if possible, will be very hard:

Israel is preparing to invade Gaza, a task that will require its military to engage in grinding warfare through an urban setting and defeat a Hamas organization that is stronger than ever, experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Israel’s objective is to wipe out all remnants of the Iran-backed terrorist organization whose members brutally murdered 1,300 Israelis, mostly civilians, in an unanticipated intrusion on Oct. 7, Israel’s leaders say. While the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) is better armed than Hamas and has trained for exactly the kind of operation it plans to execute in Gaza, the coming fight will present new challenges it has not yet dealt with in combat, experts said.

Michael Knights, a researcher at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), explained the challenges the IDF will face before achieving its war aims. Gaza is packed with secretive tunnels, deteriorating buildings that can be used as strongpoints for attack and thousands of “fanatical” fighters, he said, not to mention civilians.

“Any environment like this — ruins, dents, building quality, lots of civilians— it’s complicated. Then you’ve got hostages, then the three dimensional component [of] tall buildings and really extensive underground spaces,” Knights said. “And then you’ve got an enemy that is probably more advanced than anything we’re seeing outside of the Ukraine environment.”

Hamas is a “fanatical defending force that is actually very well armed,” Knights told the DCNF.

The operation will be like “moving through a minefield” while under fire the entire way through the city, he said.

Without any doubt, it'll be severely dangerous. But for the sake of safety, that's exactly why the enemy's reign can't be allowed to continue.

Update: in the meantime, Naomi Ragen makes a sad point that nothing will be the same now.