Why urban warfare in Gaza will be bloodier than in Iraq

THE WAR in Gaza is exacting a brutal toll on civilians. The Hamas-run health ministry says that more than 8,000 people have . The number of children among them, more than 3,000, exceeds the annual death toll for children in all wars in each of the preceding three years. , from satellite imagery, that over a tenth of Gaza’s housing stock has been destroyed, leaving more than 280,000 people without homes to which they can return. In many ways that fits with the norm of urban warfare, which is unusually destructive. But Israel’s war in Gaza is also distinctive.