On Friday and Saturday in the Gaza Strip, terrorist groups launched some 40 rockets into Israel, of which seven were intercepted by the Iron Dome and two landed in towns near the Strip, damaging property but not causing any injuries. The remainder landed in empty fields or failed to make it over the border fence at all. But Yoav Zitun finds evidence that Hamas and its allies are gradually improving their missile technology in ways that could be dangerous in the event of a more intense conflict:

With a 22-percent success rate [for the rockets], and taking into account that Iron Dome is 85-to-90-percent effective, dozens of rockets may hit urban centers in the country’s south should the conflict escalate and Gaza terror groups fire hundreds of rockets per day. In previous rounds of escalation over the past two years, Hamas tried to bypass Iron Dome through massive salvos, overwhelming the defense system.

These attempts were partially successful and even led to the death of an Israeli in Ashdod, but since then, the defense establishment has also upgraded the system’s capabilities to deal with concentrated volleys at a variety of ranges.

This past weekend ended with relative success for Hamas, even if it did not claim any Israeli casualties. [Moreover], the terrorist organization is likely trying—albeit [so far] without much success—to smuggle precision equipment into the Gaza Strip that will allow it to turn its rockets into missiles, similar to Hizballah’s precision-guided-missile program in Lebanon.

The IDF Southern Command estimates that Hamas is still far from obtaining or producing such tie-breaking weapons and has not been able to smuggle standard arms into the Gaza Strip for years due to IDF activity, but the last round proves that the Islamist group has been making strides toward this goal.

While the far left and the extreme right have responded with frenzied outrage to Israel’s attacks on Iran, middle-of-the-road, establishment types have expressed similar sentiments, only in more measured tones. These think-tankers and former officials generally believe that Israeli military action, rather than nuclear-armed murderous fanatics, is the worst possible outcome. Garry Kasparov examines this mode of thinking:

Now that the Islamic Republic is severely weakened, the alarmist foreign-policy commentariat is apprising us of the unacceptable risks, raising their well-worn red flags. (Or should I say white flags?) “Escalation!” “Global war!” And the ultimate enemy of the status quo: “regime change!”

Under President Obama, American officials frequently stared down the nastiest offenders in the international rogues’ gallery and insisted that there was “no military solution.” “No military solution” might sound nice to enlightened ears. Unfortunately, it’s a meaningless slogan. Tellingly, Russian officials repeat it all the time too. . . . But Russia does believe there are military solutions to its problems—ask any Ukrainian, Syrian, or Georgian. Yet too many in Washington remain determined to fight armed marauders with flowery words.

If you are worried about innocent people being killed, . . . spare a thought for the millions of Iranians who face imprisonment, torture, or death if they dare deviate from the strict precepts of the Islamic Revolution. Or the hundreds of thousands of Syrians whose murder Iran was an accomplice to. Or the Ukrainian civilians who have found themselves on the receiving end of over 8,000 Iranian-made suicide drones over the past three years. Or the scores of Argentine Jews blown up in a Buenos Aires Jewish community center in 1994 without even the thinnest of martial pretexts.

The Democratic Connecticut senator Chris Murphy was quick and confident in his pronouncement that Israel’s operation in Iran “risks a regional war that will likely be catastrophic for America.” Maybe. But a regional war was already underway before Israel struck last week. Iran was already supporting the Houthis in Yemen, Hamas in Gaza, Hizballah in Lebanon, and Russia in Ukraine. Israel is simply moving things toward a more decisive conclusion.

Perhaps Murphy and his ilk dread most being proved wrong—which they will be if, in a few weeks’ time, their apocalyptic predictions haven’t come true, and the Middle East, though still troubled, is a safter place.