In the context of the provided PHP function, what are some best practices for handling and manipulating HTML content within a string?

When handling and manipulating HTML content within a string in PHP, it is important to use functions that are specifically designed for working with HTML. One common approach is to use the `htmlspecialchars()` function to escape special characters in the HTML content to prevent XSS attacks. Additionally, you can use functions like `strip_tags()` to remove any unwanted HTML tags from the string.

function sanitize_html($html_content) {
    // Escape special characters in HTML content
    $escaped_content = htmlspecialchars($html_content);
    
    // Remove any unwanted HTML tags
    $sanitized_content = strip_tags($escaped_content);
    
    return $sanitized_content;
}

$html_content = "<p>Hello, <script>alert('XSS attack');</script>World!</p>";
$sanitized_html = sanitize_html($html_content);

echo $sanitized_html;