Gaza Strip

Five Palestinians killed

Israeli soldiers on Saturday shot and killed a Hamas militant whom the military said was responsible for a rocket attack that killed two Israeli preschoolers last week and triggered an army offensive in northern Gaza.

Abed Nabhan, 25, was one of five Palestinians killed Saturday in the continuing Israeli operation in northern Gaza.

Nabhan, a Hamas field commander, was killed when Israeli troops shot at Hamas militants preparing to fire an anti-tank missile from the Jebaliya refugee camp.

After the deadly rocket attack on the Israeli border down of Sderot on Sept. 29, the Israeli army launched the largest incursion into northern Gaza since Israeli-Palestinian fighting broke out four years ago.

The army said Nabhan was responsible for the Sderot attack as well as a Sept. 30 attack on an army post in northern Gaza that killed an Israeli soldier and wounded two others.

Egypt

Tribesmen detained in attacks that killed 33

Investigators lifted fingerprints, swabbed dust and collected tissue from the wreckage of three car bombings Saturday and detained dozens of Bedouin tribesmen, including quarry workers who could have provided the explosives that killed at least 33 people.

Israel blamed al-Qaida for the Thursday night attacks in two Sinai resorts, and Egyptian investigators were leaning toward an al-Qaida connection as well.

Egyptian investigators said they suspected eight to 10 terrorists targeting Israeli tourists carried out the attacks, possibly slipping in from Saudi Arabia or Jordan on speed boats. They also said there was a chance a local sleeper cell of Egyptians might have been activated to stage the attacks, Egypt’s first terrorist strike in seven years.

Tokyo

2 dead, 5 missing in typhoon

A powerful typhoon raked Japan’s Pacific coastline Saturday, killing at least two people and leaving at least five others missing in the most powerful storm to hit the nation in a decade, officials said.

Ma-on, which means horse saddle in Cantonese, was the record eighth typhoon to reach Japan’s shores this year. Hardest hit were Tokyo and the central states of Shizuoka and Aichi, where rain turned streets into rivers, mudslides damaged homes and gusts ripped trees from the ground.