Police: No evidence crash that killed Israeli in West Bank due to rock-throwing

Police said Sunday there currently is no evidence that a West Bank car accident that led to the death of an Israeli woman was caused by rocks thrown by Palestinians, as her family had claimed.

Hadas Tapuhi, a 30-year-old mother of four, died last week after her car swerved from its lane and hit an oncoming truck near the settlement of Ateret, where she lived, in the northern West Bank.

“In contrast to reports attempting to create a reality that does not correspond to the findings of the investigation at this stage, there have not been any findings that indicate stone-throwing toward the vehicle, nor were reports received about stone-throwing on the road,” police said in a statement.

“Nevertheless, all possibilities are being looked into as part of the investigation, all in order to arrive at the truth,” police added.

The statement came in response to a segment aired by Hadashot TV news in which Tapuhi’s husband and the security coordinator of Ateret again questioned if the crash was indeed an accident.

“I’m not saying it was 100 percent [rock-throwing]. I wasn’t there, I don’t know,” Hadas’s husband Yonadav Tapuhi told the network. “But there is a very clear background here of things that happen every day.”

“I have rocks thrown at me. Hadas had rocks thrown at her a month ago… this happens every day,” he added.

While saying he is willing to accept that “if it was a crash, it was a crash,” Tapuhi said he felt authorities tried to “whitewash” the case.

Last week, the Ateret settlement put out a statement saying that a military tracker had identified signs that stones had been thrown at the site of the crash.

“In that specific spot, stones are thrown every week at Israeli vehicles,” the statement said, providing a picture it said showed the stones on the road.

“The IDF and police suspect that the driver tried to escape from the stones thrown at her and swerved from her lane and crashed into a truck heading toward her,” the statement said. “The secretariat of Ateret demands that the security forces complete the investigation and prevent the next case.”

While stone-throwing by Palestinians at Israeli cars is a frequent occurrence in the West Bank, roads there are also notoriously dangerous, with a higher proportion of fatalities than on roads inside the Green Line. Most roads are a single lane in each direction with no dividers and plagued by reckless driving and little enforcement.

In a letter published on the Israel National News site on Tuesday, Hadas Tapuhi’s brother, Yuval Langzam, said the family had further evidence that the accident was caused by stone-throwing, but did not give details.

“We are not willing to let it go or to rest, even in this most painful time at the start of (the Jewish mourning period of) shiva — until we know conclusively that the nationalistic angle has been thoroughly investigated with all means,” Langzam wrote.

“We demand the start of a full-scale, urgent investigation that will also probe a nationalistic (motive). An in-depth serious investigation using all available military and intelligence resources, just as they do (in other cases) when needed,” he wrote.

His call was apparently a reference to the recent arrest and impending prosecution of an Israeli teen suspected in the deadly October stoning of a Palestinian woman.

The minor was arrested on December 30, along with two other students from the Pri Haaretz yeshiva high school in the northern West Bank settlement of Rehelim. A week later, two more boys from the same boarding school were arrested. Last Sunday, the Shin Bet security service, which is running the investigation along with the police’s nationalistic crime unit, partially lifted a gag order on the case and announced that the five boys were suspected of involvement in the killing of Aisha Rabi.

The 47-year-old Palestinian mother of eight was fatally struck on the head by a rock, while driving in a car with her husband and daughter near the northern West Bank’s Tapuah Junction on October 12.

The prime suspect in the case is still being held in custody.