Much has been made of the “threat” posed by the seemingly longer-range rockets fired out of the Gaza Strip. Since the Israeli invasion the regular, barely explosive rockets that hit southern towns that even most Israelis aren’t that familiar with have been replaced by the menace of rockets hitting noteworthy places like Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.

Is this the smoking gun proving some nation is helping Gaza factions with rocket technology? Not at all, it turns out, as the rockets flying so much farther are the exact same metal tubes that tend to come out of the strip whenever Israel attacks, and the reason they are going further is that they took all the explosives and the warhead casing off.

“They’re pipes, basically,” one Israeli official noted. And while the flying chunks of cylindrical metal could conceivably clonk someone on the head, the menace posed by such devices is even more theoretical than the already marginal risk posed by Gaza’s usual retaliatory strikes.

Some Palestinian factions are denying this, insisting that it is all an Israeli plot to try to make their attacks seem less dangerous. Yet with the “long-range” fire seemingly not doing anything, the reports seem credible.