Fears grow for ME truce after Israeli raid in Gaza

It was the second such aerial attack in the occupied territory in two weeks, with Israel repeatedly accusing Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas of failing to crack down on militants, putting serious pressure on a de facto truce.

The violence comes ahead of Israel's planned withdrawal of troops and settlers from the Gaza Strip starting in August after almost four decades of occupation.

Palestinian medical sources said the two victims, sisters aged 19 and 32, were in a serious condition following the late Sunday attack near the sprawling Jabaliya refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip.

An Israeli military source said the attack targeted two rocket launchers on the outskirts of Jabaliya, which two Palestinian militants were preparing to activate from a distance.

A spokesman for the armed wing of Islamic Jihad said militants fired two shells at a Jewish settlement in the area before the Israeli drone fired three rockets in their direction and the activists managed to escape.

Israeli military sources confirmed none of the militants was wounded and said they were unaware others were in the vicinity when the drone fired.

"The object of the raid was to prevent rocket fire and apart from those two men, who were not hurt in the attack, no one else appeared to be in the area," said the Israeli military source.

On May 18, Israel launched its first air strike against Palestinian militants since armed groups began observing a de facto truce in January, killing a militant from the Islamist movement Hamas.

Before and after that attack, Palestinian militants launched a barrage of rocket strikes, putting the increasingly fragile truce in jeopardy.

Abbas -- who has faced down a gauntlet of Israeli criticism for not using force to crush militants -- said the time had come for Hamas to renounce violence and enter into dialogue with his ruling Fatah party.

Some Fatah officials have accused Hamas of partly engineered the recent spike in violence in Gaza as part of a dispute with Fatah over local elections earlier this month and parliamentary polls scheduled for July.