IDF tank fire wounds four members of Qassam rocket cell in Gaza Strip IDF lifts West Bank closure, allows 25,000 laborers into Israel; Palestinian shot dead at checkpoint. By Avi Issacharoff, Amos Harel August 20, 2006 Haaretz http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/752256.html Israel Defense Forces tank fire wounded four members of a Qassam rocket cell near border fence separating Israel and the Gaza Strip on Sunday night. The IDF said the shell was fired at the Palestinians near the Kissufim border crossing, but not before the gunmen managed to fire two rockets at Israel. Israel on Sunday lifted the military closure it placed on the West Bank some three weeks ago. Israel is also permitting some 25,000 Palestinian laborers to enter Israel for work purposes. The closure on the Gaza Strip remains in place. Palestinian shot dead at checkpointThe Israel Defense Forces is looking into an incident at the Hawara checkpoint in the West Bank on Sunday morning in which a Palestinian was shot dead and three others were wounded. The army is checking whether the taxi in which the four were traveling was fired on by IDF reserve troops manning the checkpoint. The soldiers' account, according to which they fired into the air, is being checked, and a further probe is expected. Israel Radio said troops at the checkpoint opened fire at a vehicle in which the four Palestinians were travelling. The Magen David Adom rescue service said that the dead man and a moderately wounded man were taken to Beilinson Medical Center in Petah Tikva. The Red Crescent took the other two, who were lightly hurt, for treatment. The men, all civilians in their 20s, had been trying to bypass the checkpoint to get to jobs elsewhere in the West Bank, Palestinian drivers who use the same route said. Palestinians under the age of 35 are generally prevented from passing through IDF checkpoints in the West Bank as part of security restrictions against potential bombers. Locals said the man who was killed was 22 and that two of the wounded, both of whom were shot in the legs and said to be in a stable condition, were 25 and 29. The IDF declined to elaborate on the details of the incident. Soldier buried in hometownIDF soldier Roi Farjun, killed Saturday in the Jordan Valley, was laid to rest Sunday at 11 A.M. in his hometown of Yehud. The family asked that no photographs be taken at the funeral, the IDF Spokesman's Office said. Late Saturday, Lieutenant Colonel Emanuel Moreno, of Moshav Tlamim, was laid to rest at the military cemetery on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem. Moreno was killed in the raid in Baalbek, eastern Lebanon in the early hours of Saturday. Staff Sergeant Farjun, 21, was killed by a Palestinian gunman who opened fire at the Bekaot checkpoint southeast of Nablus. Farjun's comrades from the Haredi Nahal battalion returned fire, killing the gunman, Mohammed Bani-Ouda, 22, from the village of Tamoun. In the attack at Bekaot checkpoint on Saturday, the gunman was standing in the line for the Magnometer check for pedestrians crossing from west to east. When he was two meters from the machine, he pulled out a gun and fired to the left at a squad commander in the Haredi Nahal unit who was standing 10 meters away, examining a Palestinian taxi. One of the bullets hit Farjun in the neck, above his ceramic flak jacket, killing him instantly. The other soldiers at the checkpoint opened fire and killed the gunman. No one else was wounded. Fatah's military wing, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, said the gunman was one of their operatives, although he was unknown to Israeli authorities and had no record of security offenses. In other incidents in the territories, seven wanted Palestinians were arrested overnight in the West Bank. On Friday, four Palestinians were killed by Israeli security forces. Two of them were killed near the perimeter fence along the northern Gaza Strip. In one incident IDF soldiers fired at two Islamic Jihad operatives who approached the fence, killing Mohammed al-Mazar, 19, and wounding his companion. In the second incident a 30-year-old shepherd, Ghanem al-Khatib, was killed near the fence by IDF fire. In the West Bank, the police counterterror unit killed two Islamic Jihad operatives, Iqla Snaita, 30, and Khaled Snaita, 26, while trying to arrest them in a cave near the village of Abidia, east of Bethlehem. M-16 rifles, hand grenades and night-vision equipment were found in their possession. The two were released from Israeli prisons five months ago and are suspected of involvement in shooting attacks in the Judean Desert. Meanwhile, east of Jenin, three Hamas operatives died while preparing a bomb for a terror attack, Hamas announced. Shadi Malah, 28, Annan Dahrame, 27, and Maleq Yasin, 23, were killed when an explosives belt in their possession detonated.