Compare what the IDF are doing in Gaza--turning whole swaths of dense urban sprawl into a cratered moonscape--with how the US did its counterinsurgency work in densely-populated urban environments in Iraq like Baghdad, Mosul, Fallujah, and Ramadi. Did we level whole neighborhoods via air strikes to get a few Al Qaeda in Iraq cells? No. Did we cordon off and clear out entire cities block by block on foot via ground troops? Yes. Did we focus on getting the supporting populace (Iraqi Sunnis) to turn against Al Qaeda in Iraq by building shit for them while also doing everything possible to not produce civilian casualties and then paying families of civilians killed on accident with hard cash ($10k+ per victim)? Yes. Is Israel taking this same kind of approach via appealing to the Palestinian populace and trying to wedge them away from Hamas? No.

There's your alternative model, from right here at home. By 2009, the Iraqi Sunnis had turned against Al Qaeda in Iraq, which ended both the counter-US insurgency *and* the Sunni-Shia civil war that raged there from 2006-2008. Our involvement in Iraq was a ultimately big mistake, but there are real lessons that came out of that mistake that Israel could learn from. The success of this approach to doing counterinsurgency in the urban environment is one of them. Israel clearly didn't take any notes.