A 122 mm Grad artillery rocket fell near the southern Israeli town of Netivot on Oct. 7. Netivot — about nine miles from the Gaza Strip — is outside the range of Gaza's homemade Qassam rockets and thus is usually insulated from such attacks. Though this incident indicates that Palestinian militants in Gaza have increased their capabilities, a six-mile range extension does not meaningfully alter the scope of their activity. While more villages within those six miles will feel the sting of these rockets, the area is lightly populated, and the suburbs of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem remain well out of reach. The Qassam is a very simple design, with a long cylindrical body, conical nose and four tail fins. Designed to be fabricated in the resource-scarce Gaza Strip, Qassams are made of iron or steel piping (they are often constructed in metalwork shops) and fueled by a blend of sugar, oil, alcohol and fertilizer. Depending on the version, the warhead can contain from 1 to 40 pounds of explosive. Its range varies from less than two miles to beyond six miles, but it is both inaccurate and difficult to aim. The 122 mm Grad artillery rocket, however, is a far more standardized and mass-produced design dating back to the Soviet Union in the 1950s. Now very widely proliferated, it is produced in Russia, China, North Korea and Romania. There are several variants, but the predominant characteristics are a warhead of around 40 pounds and a range of just over 12 miles. Hezbollah used the Grad extensively in the summer of 2006, but the rocket will be less effective in southern Israel around the Gaza Strip than it was in the North. Not only is the Israeli territory within the Palestinian militants' reach more sparsely populated, but their supply of Grad rockets also is more limited than Hezbollah's. Furthermore, artillery rockets are unguided; their effectiveness comes from massed fire. They are designed and intended to be fired by batteries in salvos. Artillery rockets, properly employed, can be devastating. However, the ability to use them most effectively requires significant logistical capability and truck-mounted launchers that are harder to conceal from Israeli warplanes than the rail tripod launchers widely used for Qassams. Israeli media are reporting that a large shipment of Grad rockets recently was brought into the Gaza Strip. This very well could have been facilitated by the Syrian regime, which can only afford indirect retaliation against Israel for the Sept. 6 airstrike. Israel's grand strategy for containing the Palestinian territories has been to hive off the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip for the Egyptians to worry about while financially integrating the Fatah-controlled West Bank. (Cairo has little interest in shouldering the burden of Gaza and has conveyed this message to the Israelis.) While the strike near Netivot is a reminder that Gaza cannot be written off wholesale, work on counter-rocket, artillery and mortar (C-RAM, as it is known) technology has been under way for years. This work has only accelerated since the summer of 2006, and as this technology matures, it will further limit Gaza's ability to strike at Israel.