Israeli police have launched an investigation into the death of a Palestinian woman in the West Bank on the assumption that the stones that killed her were thrown by Jewish settlers. 

Aisha Mohammed Rabi, 47, was killed near the Tapuach Junction, south of Nablus, when a stone thrown from the side of the road hit her head after smashing through the car window.

Her husband, who was driving, told local media that he saw six or seven youngsters throwing the stones and that they were in an area controlled by nearby settlements. 

Three days later, the assailants’ identities were still not clear. The investigation is currently being carried out by the police’s “Nationalist Crime” section — which deals with Jewish terror attacks — and by the Shin Bet security service.

Israeli officials said that “all directions are still being investigated”, including the possibility that the stones were thrown by Palestinians who mistook the car carrying the couple and two of their daughters for an Israeli one.

But the timing and location of the attack — in an area where there is a large Israeli military presence — makes this scenario less likely.

The start of the olive harvest in early autumn is usually a tension and routinely violent period in the West Bank.

On Sunday alone, hundreds of olive trees were found to have been vandalised near five Palestinian villages. 

While Israeli authorities are still uncertain over whether settlers were behind Friday night’s attack, there were no such doubts on the Palestinian side: President Mahmoud Abbas said that Ms Rabi was “another martyr in the list of Palestinian martyrs.”

US President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy Jason Greenblatt also condemned the act, calling it a “reprehensible act”.