1、PEERING INTO THE PAST ANDFUTURE OF URBAN WARFARE INISRAELDAVID BETZDECEMBER 17,2015COMMENTARYI traveled recently to Israel to visit a state-of-the-art military training facility in the southern Negev Desert opened bythe Israeli Defense Force(IDF)last year.The facility,at the Tzeelim army base,is mea
2、nt to simulate urban operationsof the kind the Israelis have so often faced in their conflicts with Palestinian and Lebanese militants.Though the degreeof emphasis the IDF has placed on military operations in urban terrain has waxed and waned,since the mid-1980s atleast it has maintained an extensiv
3、e training infrastructure for this purpose,which from time to time other armieshave admired.After the Second Intifada,however a conflict that was fought almost exclusively in the densely built-upenvironment of the West Bank and Gaza the need for even more and better urban warfare training was deemed
4、 allthe greater.Known as“Baladia”(Arabic for“city”),the core of this facility is indeed a small city or large town of some 600buildings of a range of types,including five mosques,several cafes,a clinic,a town hall,a casbah,an eight-storyapartment building,a cemetery,and a“youth club,”all arranged in
