Palestinian man to be indicted for killing settler in fatal March car ramming

Dawas Hassoun, a Palestinian man in his 50s, will be indicted for the fatal ramming of 18-year-old Yehuda Sherman in the West Bank, police and the Shin Bet announced Wednesday, classifying the incident as an intentional attack.

On March 21, Sherman had been traveling in an ATV with two others in the Palestinian town of Beit Imrin, north of Nablus, when Hassoun, who lives in the town, hit the ATV with his truck, killing the teenager. Hassoun claimed the incident was an accident.

The incident sparked a wave of revenge attacks on Palestinians by extremist settlers and was linked to the harassment of a CNN film crew.

Police began investigating the incident as a lethal car accident, but later announced that they were probing the possibility that it was a nationalistic motivated attack by the Palestinian suspect.

“When the defendant noticed three Israelis traveling in the village at the time, he made up his mind to hurt them should they slow down,” the agencies said in a statement. “After chasing them for a short time, the defendant intentionally rammed the Ranger [vehicle] the three were traveling in.”

The vehicle slid into a valley, and Sherman was fatally injured in the impact. The two other men, his older brother, Daniel, and the driver, were lightly hurt and taken to the hospital.

Police said they also arrested Hassoun’s son after conducting a search of the family home and finding a submachine gun and hunting rifle in his possession. An indictment will also be filed against him in the next few days.

In March, police said that Hassoun “admitted to the acts attributed to him,” but added that “the investigation is ongoing.”

A police spokesperson did not immediately clarify what specifically Hassoun admitted to police. Moreover, Palestinians say that such purported confessions are often made while under duress from interrogators.

Sherman lived in the illegal settlement outpost of Shuva Yisrael Farms in the northern West Bank. The alleged attack happened as he was conducting a “land patrol” with two others, including his brother, Daniel, who lives in and runs the wildcat outpost, the Samaria District Council said at the time.

In the days after Sherman’s death, settlers carried out dozens of attacks across Palestinian towns, with property torched and residents injured.  In one incident, Palestinian media outlets reported that several Palestinians were shot during a settler attack on the village of Tayasir.

When a CNN crew arrived to report on the Tayasir attack — in area A of the West Bank, territory which is supposedly under full civilian and security control of the Palestinian Authority — a reservist Israeli soldier was caught on camera telling CNN reporter Jeremy Diamond that the entire West Bank belongs to Jews and that they were avenging the death of a settler.

Diamond said a soldier put his cameraman in a chokehold as troops tried to prevent them from filming at an illegal West Bank outpost in the area. Two of the soldiers told the reporters they had been friends with Sherman.

IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir denounced the behavior as a “grave ethical incident.” In an unprecedented move, the entire battalion of several hundred soldiers was removed from operational duties in the West Bank.