A cease-fire along the Israeli border with Gaza appears to be holding, mostly, and now that things have calmed down an Israeli official put the fighting into perspective for the rest of us: The whole thing was basically practice for a war with Iran. The unnamed official called the fighting that's raged since Friday a "mini-drill" for a war with Iran, in which Israel got to practice taking cover from Palestinian rockets, and the Israeli Air Force got to live-test its Iron Dome rocket defense system, which it turns out worked pretty well. Reuters reports the system shot down three out of four rockets fired from Gaza -- a little less than the 90 percent reported in the Jerusalem Post but still pretty good. 

The Egyptian-brokered cease-fire, meanwhile, hasn't completely quelled the cross-border violence that has claimed 25 lives, CNN reports. Three rockets and mortars reportedly landed in Israel early on Tuesday as the two sides came away from the cease-fire talk with slightly different interpretations of what they'd agreed to:

Daoud Shehab, a leader with the Palestinian miliant group Islamic Jihad, said, a truce began at 1 a.m. local time, but was based on the condition that Israel wouldn't carry out targeted killings. Amos Gilad with the Israeli Defense Ministry said that was never a part of the deal.

It sounds like a bit of practice is warranted in the treaty-making department, as well as missile defense.

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Adam Martin