Gaza City - A malfunctioning Palestinian rocket struck inside the northern Gaza Strip instead of hitting Israel Friday, killing two Palestinian girls, hospital officials said.

The girls died when the rocket hit their house in the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahia, they said. Their father and a third sister were moderately injured

Meanwhile, a Hamas militant also died of wounds sustained in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza some three weeks ago, the armed wing of the militant Islamist Hamas movement ruling the strip, the al-Qassam Brigades, said in a statement. (dpa)