After Hamas attack, Israeli retaliation tactics raise Gaza invasion fears

Israel’s military has rallied after an initial chaotic scramble to halt an assault by Palestinian Islamist group Hamas and is retaliating with airstrikes on roads, buildings and other sites in Gaza while sending huge reinforcements towards the enclave.
To many of the 2.3 million residents of the strip of land that Israeli forces quit in 2005, the mobilisation and intense bombardment look ominously familiar: the prelude to a ground invasion and one that may match, or even eclipse, Israel’s incursions in 2008 and 2014.
One Israeli security source told Reuters a ground offensive now looked inevitable.
Israeli security sources said it took more than 48 hours to restore military cohesion, halt infiltrations and clear Hamas fighters from towns they stormed on Saturday in an operation that caught the Middle East’s most powerful army off guard.
Using a web of deception and relying on motorbikes, paragliders and other basic equipment, Hamas fighters killed more than 1,000 Israelis and took scores of hostages – a move that potentially complicates any Israeli response.
But Israel’s retaliation has nonetheless been fierce. The death toll from airstrikes on Gaza was at least 830 people on Tuesday and, according to U.N. figures, more than 180,000 had been made homeless.