Perilous
Times
An Israeli settler and his 18-month-old son were killed by
stone-throwing Palestinians: police
AFP
An Israeli settler and his 18-month-old son were killed when the
man lost control of his car after being hit by stones hurled by
Palestinians, Israeli police said Sunday.
"Preliminary results of the investigation lead us to conclude that
the father was hit in the head by a stone, which made him lose
control of the vehicle," police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld told
AFP, adding the crash occurred Friday.
The settler, 25-year-old Israeli-American Asher Palmer, and his
son Yonathan lived in the Kiryat Arba settlement near Hebron in
the southern West Bank.
Police had initially ruled out an attack against the car.
On the day of the crash, Palestinians had hurled stones at
settlers' vehicles, particularly in the region where the settler
and the child were killed.
There were also clashes between Palestinian demonstrators and
police in several West Bank localities, the day when the
Palestinian leadership officially applied for UN membership for
Palestine.
A Palestinian was killed and three others injured that same day
near Nablus in the northern West Bank by Israeli army fire in the
wake of clashes between Palestinian villagers and Israeli
settlers.
At the funeral of Palmer and his son on Sunday in the Jewish
cemetery of Hebron where several hundred were gathered, Danny
Dayan, a leader of the settlers, accused Israeli authorities of
intentionally trying to cover up the cause of the deaths by
presenting it as an accident.