Police, Shin Bet: ‘Suspicion growing’ that settler activist killed in terror ramming

Investigators’ “suspicion is growing” that Yehuda Sherman, the settler activist who was fatally struck by a car last Saturday near the illegal West Bank outpost where he lived, was killed in a terror attack, the police and Shin Bet announced Thursday.

The circumstances of the incident in which Sherman died have remained unclear. Settler activists and far-right politicians immediately alleged that the incident was a terror attack, but the security services have taken several days to evaluate what happened, with the suspect’s lawyer saying it was a traffic accident.

“According to the findings of the investigative team… which includes the Shin Bet, investigators from the Judea and Samaria District Police, and the IDF, suspicion is growing that this was a deliberate attack on the deceased’s vehicle, motivated by nationalist motives,” the two agencies said in their joint statement.

The statement claimed that the Palestinian suspect who has been arrested and questioned over the incident “admitted to the acts attributed to him,” but added that “the investigation is ongoing.”

A police spokesperson did not immediately clarify what specifically the suspect admitted to police.

Moreover, Palestinians say that such purported confessions are often made while under duress from interrogators.

The suspect has also been barred from meeting with a lawyer since he was arrested on Saturday — a practice that Israel’s military court system allows against Palestinians.

Sherman, a resident of the illegal settlement outpost of Shuva Yisrael Farms in the northern West Bank, close to the settlement of Homesh, was killed on Saturday afternoon when the ATV he was traveling in was hit by a Palestinian vehicle.

According to Sherman’s brother, who was in the vehicle with him at the time and injured in the crash, the driver of the Palestinian vehicle had been waiting for them, and when they passed him, he chased after them and rammed their ATV off a cliff edge.

The suspect’s family and lawyer have denied the allegations of terror, insisting that the crash was an accident. The driver surrendered himself to security forces, Haaretz reported.

Sherman’s brother also claimed Palestinians from a nearby village began throwing stones at them, before Israeli security forces came to their rescue, but footage from the scene, which appeared to show a group of Palestinians aiding the wounded, cast doubt on his version of events.

פלסטינים מסייעים לפצועים בנוכחות ישראלים בתקרית שבה נהרג יהודה שרמן בגדה, שלשום
(צילום: שימוש לפי סעיף 27א' לחוק זכויות יוצרים) pic.twitter.com/kQKZ80d0l7

— הארץ חדשות (@haaretznewsvid) March 23, 2026

The brother of the suspected driver has insisted that the ramming was completely unintentional. “My brother has never hurt anyone in his life,” he told Haaretz on Tuesday, and also expressed worry for his sibling, who was also injured in the crash, after he “left the hospital and went straight to detention.”

The driver’s lawyer called the crash “a regular car accident that could happen to anyone.”

“A motorized [off-road] vehicle that is forbidden from traveling on the road surprised a Palestinian driver in Area A,” said Ahmad Khalifa, the driver’s lawyer, to Haaretz, referring to areas in the West Bank that are under the control of the Palestinian Authority.

Even before the official police update, settlers — some reportedly close to Sherman and his family — had claimed it was a terror attack. Leaders of the Religious Zionism and Otzma Yehudit parties also described Sherman’s death as an act of terrorism.

The first two nights following Sherman’s death, settler extremists carried out a spate of attacks on Palestinian villages in the northern West Bank, torching homes, vehicles and other property.

The West Bank has recently seen a wave of rising extremist settler violence against Palestinians. Six Palestinian civilians have been shot dead by settlers since the beginning of March, while other violent attacks by such radical elements against Palestinians and civil rights activists seeking to protect them have become a daily occurrence in the West Bank.